The EU continues its dirty work of abusing migrants

While the media and politics often focus on the deaths of migrants attempting to cross the sea lanes at Europe’s borders, there is much less awareness of what is happening in transit countries such as Niger, Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and others. A recently published report by IOM, UNHCR and the Mixed Migration Centre describes an extremely grim situation for people on the move and trying to reach Europe via the African continent. The report denounces the ‘unimaginable horrors’ experienced by refugees, including ‘death, sexually transmitted diseases, torture and physical violence, kidnapping for ransom, trafficking, robbery, arbitrary detention, collective expulsions and refoulement’.

The EU often attributes the human rights violations that refugees and migrants suffer in transit countries to the actions of smugglers and traffickers. This narrative conveniently shifts the focus away from the EU’s role and responsibility: in reality, the EU member states’ border externalisation policies, which outsource border control to non-EU countries, are the main causes of the abuse and exploitation of migrants.

The new pact on migration and asylum

The New Pact on Migration and Asylum, approved by the European Parliament earlier this year, integrates border externalisation as a core component of European migration policy. The mechanism is very simple: by providing financial aid and support, the EU expects transit countries to stop migrants before they reach Europe, and prevent them from reaching European territory before they can submit an asylum application. Deals with third countries typically include provisions for setting up migration control centres, strengthening local coastguards and implementing stricter border control measures.

The recent agreement with Egypt illustrates the EU’s border externalisation practices. Described by human rights groups as a “cash for migrant control” deal, the EU will send a €7.4 billion package to Egypt to prevent refugees and migrants from reaching Europe. This is despite the authoritarian rule of the Sisi regime and its history of unlawful deportations and detentions of refugees and migrants, as well as the torture and imprisonment of political opponents. Similar agreements were signed this year with Mauritania and Tunisia.

Several human rights groups have highlighted that migrants intercepted or detained in transit countries routinely face serious human rights violations. Human Rights Watch has documented abuses by the Tunisian police and military, including “forced expulsions and racist attacks,” arbitrary detention, and the dumping of asylum seekers in the desert “with inadequate food and water.”

A UN fact-finding mission said migrants and refugees in Libya were facing “murder, enforced disappearance, torture, enslavement, sexual violence, rape and other inhumane acts”. The EU has renewed its cooperation with Libya to stop and push back refugees attempting to cross the Mediterranean.

Cloaked in the language of “cooperation”, “partnership” and “border management”, the New Pact, through these agreements, increasingly shifts the burden of migration management to countries with appalling human rights records, endangering the lives of migrants and undermining international human rights standards that the EU purports to uphold while instead wilfully looking the other way.

Europe’s right-wing pedigree on migration

The New Pact has received broad political support from mainstream parties in the European Parliament. While far-right parties have always pushed for stricter migration controls, centrist and centre-left parties are now also on board. This is not a new phenomenon, but rather a growing trend in recent years.

In Germany, for example, the Social Democratic Party (SPD) recently announced a tightening of migration policies and an acceleration of deportations, while the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE), despite their generally progressive stance in other areas, has signed migration management agreements with African countries to limit the arrival of migrants to the Canary Islands. These agreements are modelled on those signed by other EU member states.

Some countries want to go even further: after the adoption of the New Pact in April this year, fifteen EU member states, ranging from Denmark’s Social Democrats to Italy’s hard-right governing coalition, published an open letter proposing to build a “fairer, more humane, more sustainable” asylum system. In reality, the proposals are neither. The letter calls for further externalization of borders, and for repatriating migrants rescued at sea to countries outside the EU, reminiscent of Britain’s infamous asylum plan for Rwanda.

These policies and political statements reveal a broader rightward trend in European politics on migration and a worrying policy convergence across the political spectrum, with centrist and centre-left parties aligning with right-wing policies. Opposition to EU migration policies is currently relegated to radical left parties, NGOs and other civil society voices.

A bleak future for migrants and refugees

By expanding and enshrining border externalisation through the New Pact for Migration and Asylum, European countries are building an additional layer of repression and control over migrants and refugees. While boats drowning in the Mediterranean occasionally sparked public outrage across Europe, the abuses and deaths taking place in African countries are much easier to hide and ignore, and also harder to document.

There is no doubt that managing migration is a complex issue. But nothing can justify the killing and abuse of people fleeing poverty, climate change, conflict and persecution, or simply seeking a better life. European countries have blood on their hands and must be held accountable for their inhumane policies.

Tommaso Segantini is a freelance writer with a background in international relations and refugee studies. He focuses on the European Union’s border policy and gendered aspects of migration. His work has appeared in Jacobin, openDemocracy, and Adbusters.

Follow him on X: @tomhazo

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The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of The New Arab, its editors or staff.