Eine Woche nach der tödlichen Havarie im Ärmelkanal (siehe hier und hier) veröffentlichen zivilgesellschaftliche Organisationen und Aktivist_innen aus Frankreich, Großbritannien und Belgien ein gemeinsames Statement zur Lage der Geflüchteten auf der Kanalroute. Sie stellen den Tod der vier Menschen in den Kontext der hostile environment-Politik beiderseits des Ärmelkanals, wenden sich gegen die aktuellen Verschärfungen der Migrationspolitik und plädieren für Bewegungsfreiheit. Im Folgenden dokumentieren wir den auf der Website des Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants veröffentlichten Text:
Joint statement on last week’s deaths in the Channel
A week ago, news broke that a major rescue operation was underway in the Channel to rescue people from a small boat who were trying to reach safety in the UK. Reports later confirmed that four people had died, with some still missing and others in the hospital fighting for their lives. Emergency services were able to rescue 43 people, including 12 children, from the freezing waters in the early hours of the morning. Since then, a 19-year-old has been charged with assisting unlawful immigration in relation to this incident.
Our thoughts are with the loved ones of those who died last Wednesday. But these deaths are not an ‘accidental tragedy’. Instead they are the result of a political choice by the UK and French governments who continue to cut down safe routes for migration, forcing people to take these perilous journeys. Both countries have strengthened their security-focused, militarised approach to immigration. While both governments refuse to change course, we are watching the Channel become a mass grave like the Mediterranean.
The environment in France is increasingly hostile to the survival of people on the move, with police violence, evictions, and the theft of tents and personal belongings. If they survive all this, and the perilous crossing, the hostile environment in the UK then criminalises them.
These deaths did not happen in isolation – this is just the latest event in a string of deaths at the border. It has only been one year since the last mass murder in the Channel, when over 30 people died. Three years since the bodies of 39 people were recovered in a lorry in Essex. Over 20 years since 58 people were recovered in a lorry in Dover.
History will keep repeating itself if the UK and French governments continue with their policy of closed borders.
This latest event has come in the wake of the French and British governments announcing even harsher measures for migrants, new bilateral agreements between France and the UK, and a High Court decision ruling the Rwanda scheme as lawful. None of these hostile policies, nor the arrest of a teenager, will address the reasons why people risk their lives at sea.
These policies are an attack on people who are forced to flee war, conflict and persecution in search of safety.
We don’t need any more empty comments from the French and UK governments mourning these deaths. Both governments must take action and end the hostile environment for people on the move on both sides of the Channel. Until then, our migration and asylum systems will continue to function exactly as they were designed – to create devastation and cruelty. We are thankful for the actions of rescuers and all those involved in supporting people on the move, yet we acknowledge these are only palliative measures to a broken system made to oppress people.
We need the freedom to move and access to safe routes to cross borders now, more than ever, to prevent more detentions, deportations, and deaths.
Signed:
African Rainbow Family
Agora Europe
Amna Refugee Healing Network
Association Bagagérue
Association of Visitors to Immigration Detainees (AVID)
Asylum Welcome
Big Leaf Foundation
Black Europeans
Calais Action
CALAIS LIGHT
Calderdale Valley of Sanctuary
Cambridge Convoy Refugee Action Group
Camille Louis
Care4Calais
Channel Info Project
Channel Rescue
Claude Calame, EHESS, LDH, ATTAC
Coventry Refugee and Migrant Centre
CRIBS International
Da’aro Youth Project
Derbyshire Refugee Solidarity
Doctors of the World UK
Fabienne Augié
Felicity Pike
forRefugees
Forum Tunisien pour les Droits Economiques et sociaux
Frantz Fanon Foundation
Gatwick Detainees Welfare Group
Gee Manoharan
Global Link
Good Chance Theatre
Guildford Refugee Aid
Herts For Refugees
Human Rights Observers – HRO
IMIX
Jesuit Refugee Service UK
Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants
Josie Naughton, Co-founder and CEO of Choose Love
Katherine Bolton
L’Auberge des Migrants
Le Gisti
Ligue de Droits Humains de Belgique
Manchester Migrant Solidarity
Marco Mogiani
Migrant Voice
Migrants At Work LTD
Migrants Organise
Migrants’ Rights Network
Migrations Libres
Migreurop
Mr Mark Lampert / Herts for Refugees
NANSEN asbl
Nora Fellens
OHOB Ltd
Oxford Against Immigration Detention
Penrith and Eden Refugee Network
Praxis
RAMA
RefuAid
Refugee Action
Refugee Aid Network
Refugee Legal Support
Refugee Relief Ynys Mon
Refugee Support Group
Reunite Families UK
Right to Remain
Roots
Seraphus
Side by Side Refugees
SOAS Detainee Support
St Albans for Refugees
Syd Bolton, Catriona Jarvis, The Last Rights Project
The Jewish Council for Racial Equality (JCORE)
The Pickwell Foundation
The Refugee Buddy Project
Valérie Osouf
Vents Contraires
Watch the Channel
William Nicholas Gomes, human rights activist and freelance journalist, UK
Woodyard Calais
Zoe Gardner
If you would like to stand in solidarity with migrants and resist cruel immigration systems, get in touch with any of the signatories above to get involved in their work.