Human rights activists announced the "unprecedented growth of violence" in relation to migrants on the borders of Europe

They are beaten, poisoned by dogs and kept without food

Migrants and refugees are faced with “unprecedented growth of violence” on the boundaries of the European Union, the Border Violence Monitoring Network report ( PDF ) of the non -governmental organization says. Its Guardian retells its main conclusions.

The authors of the report interviewed 733 people who tried to get to Europe in 2021 and 2022. Based on their stories, more than 25 thousand migrants were documented. The data was collected in 15 countries located on the external borders of the EU (including Poland, Greece and Croatia), as well as in some countries that are not included in the European Union - in Serbia, North Macedonia and Albania.

Among the illegal actions recorded in 13 countries, by police, the maintenance in dirty and crowded rooms without water and food, refusal to provide a translator, coercion to undressing, sexualized violence, and violent shaving of migrant heads. Compared to a similar report issued in 2020, violence has become more systematic, human rights activists say. In 2021, only 5% of respondents who were sent from Europe said that they themselves were not subjected and were not witnesses to the use of “excessive power”.

The governments of countries mentioned in the report, the authors of the report note, are trying to put pressure on activists who help migrants. So, the Greece authorities, stated, established surveillance of one of the authors of the Hope Barker report and began to call it for interrogations to the police; Critical articles came out in the pro -government media.

The authorities mentioned in the report of countries are noted in the report, repeatedly denied accusations of violating migrant rights.

The study was ordered by a deputy of the European Parliament from Germany Cornelia Ernst. She assigned a direct responsibility for what was happening to the European Commission: according to Ernst, officials “are still inactive” when it is necessary to launch legal processes against EU countries, which, contrary to legislation, arbitrarily refuse people in the right to asylum.

In October 2022, Amnesty International issued a report stating that the Latvian authorities were arbitrarily detained during the migration crisis on the border with Belarus, and in some cases they tortured refugees who wanted to get to the EU. Latvia denied the accusations and claimed that the human rights organization "lost all trust." Prior to this, Amnesty issued similar reports about Lithuania and Poland.

In December 2021, The Outlaw Ocean Project, which is studying crimes at sea, published an investigation into camps in Africa, which were built in Libya for the money of the European Union. In these camps, human rights activists found out, migrants hold migrants without any accusations and access to lawyers, rob, torture and kill. European officials know about this, but continue to allocate money for camps, as they reduce the flow of migrants from Africa.