While irregular border crossings of the European Union fall by 42% compared to the same period last year, the immigration debate is heating up again in the community bloc and Brussels puts on the table the possibility of creating deportation centers in third countries – an idea that in the past was already discarded due to doubts about its compatibility with community and international legislation. But the measures that focus on the intensification of immigration policies are not harmless: they are generating a “public health crisis” that affects millions of people, according to a new report by the organization Salud por Derecho published this Tuesday.
As of mid-2024, 120 million people have been forcibly displaced due to conflict, human rights violations and insecurity. But despite repeated calls to develop immigration policies that respect fundamental rights, the organization points the finger at the EU for continuing to implement “increasingly restrictive” measures, including direct returns, the externalization of borders and deportations. . Policies that, the NGO recalls, expose migrants to increasingly dangerous routes, violence, detentions and lack of health care, which seriously affects their physical and mental health.
In addition to physical violence at borders and detentions, migrants are exposed to extreme conditions during the journey, such as stifling heat, intense cold and dehydration. “The lack of access to medical care and the interruption of treatments further aggravates their condition, also affecting their mental health,” says the NGO, which indicates that this situation causes an increase in cases of anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder among who have migrated. Added to all this are the tens of thousands of deaths along the way.
Tens of thousands of deaths
From 2014 to 2022, the kilometers of border fences – 19 in total – in the EU/Schengen area have increased from 315 to more than 2,000. “Along with the tightening of border controls, this ‘borderization’ is related to increased mortality of people trying to reach Europe,” the report reads.
“The closure of sea and land routes to reach Europe means that the number of deaths on the initial route decreases while deaths on the following route increase, usually accompanied by an increase in the mortality rate, which reflects the increase in the danger of the routes to which people are pushed,” the document says. “While the total numbers of arrivals to the EU seem to decrease at certain times, the mortality rate tends to skyrocket. An example is the period between 2015 and 2018, when arrivals were reduced 10 times, while the mortality rate multiplied by five, indicating that the increasingly longer routes are becoming more dangerous.
The document is based on data on missing persons as well as on the violence that is carried out within the continent. In this sense, the organization collects data from Missing Migrants, a monitoring program of the International Organization for Migration, and concludes that Europe is the most dangerous destination to migrate, taking into account that, from 2014 to the present, more than 50% of the deaths during this process that have been recorded have took place in Europe or in transit to the continent by sea or land – in the Mediterranean alone, 30,356 people have died or disappeared in this time, and, according to the NGO, the figures may double when disappearances are taken into account. in the Sahara, described as “the largest open-air tomb”, where, according to estimates, 24% of people who decide to cross the desert are exposed to thermal stress, which results in dehydration, hypothermia, heatstroke or famine –.
The document also relies on figures from the NGO Caminando Fronteras, which has recorded that, between 2018 and 2022, 11,522 people have lost their lives in their attempt to reach Spain by sea – the majority of deaths were recorded on the route. from West Africa to the Canary Islands and on the Alborán route (which connects the Riffian coast with eastern Andalusia)–.
The report denounces that Maritime Rescue (SASEMAR) has followed a “reverse evolution.” The authors point out that the Spanish public company in charge of rescue operations at sea “reached its record of rescues in the Mediterranean” in 2018, the same year that “the Government of Spain reduced SASEMAR’s capabilities in terms of equipment and personnel” and, furthermore, the coordination of rescue operations passed “to the military sphere, being led from now on by the maritime service of the Civil Guard.” A recent investigation has revealed that two Rescue planes were at least 20 days without flying during the migratory surge between June and August of this 2024.
Salud por Derecho also denounces “the transfer of maritime rescue responsibilities to Morocco”, which has generated greater lack of knowledge to know “what happens at sea” since, they criticize, “Morocco does not share data on its rescue operations.” Before 2018, Spain and Morocco had to jointly carry out activities to save lives at sea.
Women who migrate to Spain are twice as likely to die, according to the Andalusian Human Rights Association (APDHA), despite the fact that they only represent 10% of all migrants. Additionally, people of sub-Saharan origin, who make up 57%, face a significantly higher risk on these dangerous journeys.
From arrests to returns
Aside from mortality, the report also focuses on other practices, such as the “illegalization” of migratory routes to Europe, which “normalizes and increases” violence against migrants. An example of this is found on the Balkan route. Organizations such as Human Rights Watch have documented deterrent practices such as pushbacks, which intensify psychological distress, hopelessness, and feelings of lack of self-esteem among migrants in the Balkans. In addition, these people suffer beatings, attacks with dogs, pepper spraying, electroshocks and degrading treatment.
Once inside the EU, the report says, 100,000 migrants are detained each year due to their administrative status. In Spain, a previous study concluded that 70% of people detained in Foreigner Internment Centers (CIE) develop serious mental health problems, such as anxiety and depression, and two out of ten try to self-harm. In the case of minors who are detained, the impact of these policies on their health can last the rest of their lives. According to the NGO, a child exposed to extreme stress, such as that suffered in detention, is more likely to develop lung cancer, more at risk of suffering from cardiovascular diseases and can even lose up to twenty years of life expectancy.
Hot returns, defined as the summary return of migrants without an individual assessment of their protection needs, have been widely criticized by international organizations. The report collects data from the BVMN network (Border Violence Monitoring Network, for its acronym in English), which documented almost 25,000 cases of violence linked to these practices between 2017 and 2021 on European borders, with an increase of 113% in the number of affected people. These returns not only violate human rights, they also cause serious physical injuries and psychological trauma, recalls the Spanish organization.
Uneven funding priorities
The authors also highlight border externalization policies with agreements between the EU and countries such as Afghanistan, Libya, Turkey, Morocco and Niger, whose ability to guarantee human rights is in question. Despite this, these policies fulfill the final objective of the EU, which is to “contain migrants outside its borders,” continues Salud por Derecho, although this leads these third countries to commit “inhumane practices, such as detention and forced transfer of migrants.” The document highlights the case of Libya, whose coast guard has intercepted and returned 120,000 people through these practices since 2016. All in a country where more than 70% of migrants do not receive any type of medical assistance.
The report criticizes the EU’s decision to significantly increase funding for border control while cutting budgets for health and development programs: between 2015 and 2020, it notes, the EU spent €7.7 billion on migration control, and the Current budget shows a 94% increase in this area.
In addition, the organization maintains that although the financing of Frontex (European Border and Coast Guard Agency) for the period 2021-2027 has increased by almost 200%, to 5.6 billion euros. The organization denounces that although the funding of the EU agency increases and “its actions are announced as successes at the regional and national level, they do not achieve their objective, but simply divert migratory routes to other places.”
The report also points out how the increase in programs for migration containment contrasts with the cuts in essential programs such as EU4Health and Horizon Europe, two important European projects for the innovation and resilience of the Union’s health systems, the NGO says. For example, in 2021, 51% of the Africa Emergency Trust Fund (EUTF) budget was allocated to migration issues.