Bavarian
minister suggests sending refugees home
It’s
impossible to integrate so many people with ‘completely different
cultural background,’ he says.
By
Cynthia Kroet
8/27/16, 3:09 PM CET
Updated 8/27/16,
4:23 PM CET
Markus Söder, the
finance and home affairs minister of Bavaria, on Saturday called for
the return of “hundreds of thousands of refugees” in Germany to
their country of origin.
Söder suggested the
refugees should be sent back in the next three years. According to a
report in Die Welt, Söder said, “the Germans do not want a
multicultural society.”
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The integration
process is bound to fail, he said. Many of more than a million
refugees, who had arrived to Germany last year, have been settled in
Bavaria.
“Even with the
best intentions in the world, it will not work to integrate
successfully that many people with a completely different cultural
background,” Söder said.
The refugees also
pose a security threat because in many cases, details on their
background are unclear, he said.
Some areas in
countries such as Afghanistan and Iraq have been recognized as safe,
he said, adding that, “The civil war in Syria will also end
sometime.”
“According to
legislation, people have to return home when the reason for fleeing
is no longer valid,” the minister said.
In July, Söder
criticized Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to admit so many
refugees in such a short time to Germany. He said: “It is a big
mistake to open the borders without any checks.”
Authors:
Cynthia Kroet
Sarkozy
says Britain should manage asylum seekers on its own territory
Former
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who is attempting a political
comeback before next year's election, said on Saturday that Britain
should open an asylum center on its territory to deal with asylum
seekers now camped in Calais.
World News | Sat Aug
27, 2016 4:01pm EDT
Migrants aiming to
reach Britain have over the years gathered in camps called the
"jungle" in the French port of Calais.
In the past two
years, the population of the camps has swelled as warfare and
economic upheaval in North Africa and the Middle East has driven
thousands of migrants to try to reach Britain illegally through the
Channel Tunnel.
"I'm demanding
the opening of a center in Britain to deal with asylum seekers in
Britain so that Britain can do the work that concerns them,"
Nicolas Sarkozy told a political rally in Touquet in northern France.
Sarkozy said Britain
should manage the asylum process, accepting those it wants on British
territory and organizing charters to remove those who are rejected.
"The jungle
should not be in Calais or anywhere else, because this is a republic
and those with no rights to be here should return to their country,"
Sarkozy said.
Sarkozy was speaking
in Touquet, where in 2003, France signed a symbolic border treaty
with Britain. Under Le Touquet accord, British officials can check
passports in France and vice versa.
However, that has
led to the migrants trying to reach British shores congregating at
Calais. Images of hundreds of people trying to leap onto trucks bound
for Britain has roused anti-immigration worries on both sides of the
English Channel.
That was a key issue
in Britain's vote to leave the European Union, and it has become a
hot-button issue ahead of France's April 2017 election.
Sarkozy's
conservative rival Alain Juppe, who opened his presidential bid on
Saturday and is considered the frontrunner in the party's
presidential primaries, has called on the Touquet accord to be
renegotiated.
(Reporting by Bate
Felix and Ingrid Melander, editing by Larry King)
 |
| Migrant children sleep on the beach at the port of Chios, where 2,500 asylum seekers are being held © AFP |
Tensions
rise between Greeks and refugees
Tempers
boil over in the Chios ‘buffer zone’ camp for asylum seekers
28-8-2016 / FT
by: Alex Barker in
Chios
The mutilated rabbit
on the doorstep was the latest warning. A fortnight of menacing
incidents, including a smash-and-grab break-in and glue in the locks,
culminated this week with the dead animal left in front of the
building. The message was clear: the refugee kitchen was not welcome
in Chios.
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The Greek island of
50,000 has hosted about 2,500 asylum seekers since the EU in March
signed its refugee deal with Turkey, and tempers are fraying. A
tranquil place of mastic trees and secluded beaches, Chios has become
a cauldron of frustration for locals and migrants alike.
None more so than in
the village of Chalkios, home to the Basque-run refugee kitchen and
minutes from the Vial asylum camp, set up in an old factory among
olive groves.
“The intimidation
is increasing day by day. A lot of people from the village hate us,”
says Daniel Rivas of the Zaporeak-Sabores kitchen, run by Spanish
volunteers and turning out 1,400 meals a day. “At the beginning the
Greeks were helping. They’re not fascists or anything. But they’re
not with the refugees like before. They’re against them now.”
The kitchen’s
travails are a window into the mire of Greece’s migration crisis.
The asylum-seekers on Chios, just 7km from Turkey, are trapped in
squalid conditions and desperate to leave. The locals would like
nothing more. But the way is blocked by a Kafkaesque snare of rules
and go-slow procedures aimed at killing hope and achieving the
overriding aim of Europe’s deal with Ankara: deterring new migrants
from attempting the sea crossing to Greece.
“The EU does not
want to give a solution to the islands. They want to show there’s
no way out, there’s no escape,” says Giorgos Karamanis, Chios
deputy mayor. “The island is like a big prison. We are the buffer
zone.”
Even this strategy
is proving less effective of late. While arrival numbers dropped
sharply after the Turkey deal, the numbers are picking up. About 130
migrants a day were reaching the Greek islands last week. And
although in principle most are meant to be returned to Turkey, just a
few hundred of the more than 11,000 arrivals since March have
actually been sent back.
A girl carries her
brother near Chios port © AFP
Even if an asylum
seeker reaches the end of the multi-stage application and appeals
process and fails — which none have since the Turkey deal — Mr
Karamanis says it is impossible to return them. Since Turkey’s
failed coup in July, all Turkish police on Chios have been withdrawn.
“We can’t even return migrants who commit crimes,” he says.
The EU does not
want a solution. They want to show there’s no escape. The island is
like a big prison. We are the buffer zone
Giorgos
Karamanis, deputy mayor of Chios
In practice some
migrants have left the island for Athens. According to official UN
figures, the 2,500 asylum seekers on Chios make it the most
overcrowded of the Greek islands relative to its 1,100 capacity.
Privately, officials and aid workers say the population is probably
smaller.
Smugglers charge
€600 to bribe officials or steal migrants into lorries leaving for
Athens. Some swim into the port at night to do it themselves. Ahmad
al Muhammad, a 20-something from Syria who has been on Chios for
three months, bought a ferry ticket and “dressing like a gentleman”
tried to escape. “I looked good but it didn’t work,” he says.
After running out of
money for hotels, Mr al Muhammad stays in a makeshift tent camp in
Chios town centre, along the moat of its medieval castle. The
desperation is palpable. His friend Nidal al Doghaim brandishes four
ferry tickets worth €141 that got him nowhere. “I lost money but
that’s nothing. I will keep trying until I reach Athens and walk to
Austria.”
Frustration has
boiled over in hunger strikes, suicide attempts, fights and arson.
Most dramatic was April’s mass breakout from the Vial camp and
occupation of Chios port. The week-long protest ended a shortlived
attempt to turn Vial into a detention centre, and sapped what was
left of local goodwill.
I wouldn’t
have come if I’d known it was this hard. We really regret it. We
should have stayed in Syria
Maha Abdi,
Kurdish Syrian mother
Little makes sense
in Chios. There are asylum seekers given papers to go to Athens who
are unable to afford the ferry and are still stuck. A handful who
made it to Athens returned to Chios because the conditions were
better. Nobody seems to know what stage they are at in the asylum
process, when they will get an answer, or what that answer may mean.
Four asylum seekers were so frustrated they tried to swim back to
Turkey, only to be stopped by the Greek coastguard.
“Only God knows
how long I’ll wait,” says Hamid Hagadust, a Tajik from
Afghanistan who had been on the island for six months. “My roommate
has money but no papers. I have papers but no money,” he says,
sitting in a metal container in Vial furnished with nothing but beds
and a noisy air-conditioner. “I’ve reached the end. My kids call
from Sweden saying ‘are you coming?’ I have to say ‘Daddy has
no money’.”
A group of migrants
and refugees on a dinghy bound for Chios from Cesme in Turkey © AFP
Iñigo Gutiérrez of
SMH Rescue, a volunteer group that runs an ambulance service on
Chios, recounts the story of a family with tuberculosis that refused
hospital treatment in the hope they would become “dangerous”
enough to evacuate from the island. “He said that seriously,”
says Mr Gutiérrez. “This is a place where good men go crazy.”
Some rue ever making
the journey. Maha Abdi, a Kurdish Syrian, arrived recently knowing
nothing of the legal obstacles in Chios. With her husband and four
children, she shares half a container with broken air-conditioning.
“I wouldn’t have come if I’d known it was this hard,” she
says, washing clothes at a shared tap. “We really regret it. We
should have stayed in Syria.”
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