I Just Wanted to Save My Family
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In an attempt to justify the spirit of this regulation, which has been criticized ever since it was first signed, the European Union argues that asylum seekers will be given the same treatment and the same reception in all member states, and asserts that the explicit aim of Dublin III is to ensure that asylum seekers’ cases are handled swiftly. In actual fact, each individual state is perfectly autonomous in its decision whether—or not—to grant asylum, and many outspoken detractors denounce the differences in how these applications are handled in the various countries within the Union.
The 2015 migrant crisis, with its huge rise in refugee numbers and the chaotically inconsistent way they were handled in different European countries, highlighted the controversy surrounding Dublin III. At the time, a number of countries decided unilaterally to suspend the application of the regulation: Germany stopped deporting all refugees who had been dublinned in Greece because Athens—which, along with Italy, is the main point of entry into Europe—could no longer handle refugees or their applications appropriately. At Germany’s instigation, quotas were established as a matter of urgency for distributing asylum seekers among the different member states. But this Europe-wide decision was not respected in many countries, including France, which took in only four thousand people of its quota of thirty thousand. To their exasperation, Italy and Greece still stood alone on the front line.
When, in March 2016, Greece applied pressure to have its burden of migrants alleviated, the European Union eventually signed a barbaric accord with Turkey with the intention of reducing the influx of refugees. By the terms of this accord, Turkey undertakes to stop (or at least greatly reduce) migrations into Europe, and agrees that migrants who cross the Turkish–Greek border can be deported back onto Turkish soil. By way of compensation, the EU pledged to lift restrictions on visas granted to Turks for entering the Schengen area. But that’s not all: Three crucial points in the accord put human rights organizations on red alert. Firstly, the accord provides for different treatment in the case of Syrians: Of those eligible to seek asylum, the number allowed into EU territory will equal the number of Syrians deported back to Turkey, and will be capped at 72,000 individuals a year—an upper limit set to suit Hungary’s wishes. Secondly, this accord inevitably has advantageous financial implications for Turkey, which had essentially found itself a good strategy as a frontier-guard whose effectiveness was guaranteed by its brutality: The release of a previously established three-billion-euro fund would be accelerated to compensate Turkey for the costs incurred in abiding by the accord, and a new three-billion-euro fund would be handed over if Turkey honored its commitments effectively. Lastly, the accord also allowed for preliminary discussions about Turkey becoming a member of the EU, even though many defenders of human rights pointed out that Turkey’s membership would be completely at odds with the principles of the Union.
Following the signing of this accord, Italy became the first point of entry for refugees, a situation that—stoked by the far right—fueled the anger of the Italian people and facilitated the rise to power of former deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini and his supporters in June 2018.
Reforms to the Dublin III regulation have been under discussion since 2016, but no consensus has been reached, particularly on the question of quotas. Charities remain on the alert about these talks, especially because one option being discussed is the deportation of asylum seekers into a non-EU “third-party” country through which they have traveled if that country is deemed “safe”: Reading between the lines, this would give long-term ratification to the migrant-related accords established between the EU and Turkey.
While Europe struggles to agree on a shared migrant policy, tens of thousands of refugees are stuck in an administrative dead end and a humanitarian crisis. Migrants are forced into appalling conditions in overpopulated camps on Greek islands, referred to as “hot spots” in official documents. In Moria, a “hot spot” on the island of Lesbos, a facility intended for three thousand people currently accommodates nine thousand, one third of them children. In concrete terms, that means there are seventy-two people to every toilet, and eighty to every shower. And the camp can boast the sum total of one doctor and no lawyers. Violence and despair are everyday companions for these people who have already lost everything and who find themselves crammed together in abject conditions. Only NGOs are still in a position to raise the alarm because the Moria camp has been closed to the press since the accord signed with Turkey in March 2016. On the island of Lesbos there is a total of eleven thousand migrants who are waiting for Greece to decide their fate. Some have been there for two years, and even though Turkey has helped reduce the influx of migrants, some 1,500 to 2,000 refugees entered Greece every month in 2018. Thousands of desperate people fleeing certain death and hoping that we in Europe will treat them with humanity and dignity.
Syria Some key dates in the conflict
For more than forty years an authoritarian regime has ruled Syria “from father to son”: Bashar al-Assad succeeded his father, Hafez, as head of state in 2000. When he came to power, Syrians briefly believed their country would be liberalized, but this hope was short-lived.
2011
March: Unprecedented peaceful demonstrations in Syria with an immediate and very violent response from the regime: arrests, beatings, and live bullets fired. Assad frees dozens of jihadi prisoners from his prisons.
Summer: The summer of 2011 marks the escalation of the rebellion into armed conflict with the creation of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), initially intended to protect demonstrators from the regime’s repressive activities. Jihadi groups also start emerging, independent of the FSA. The Syrian National Council (SNC) is set up and based in Turkey to coordinate the political fight against the regime. France and the United States recognize the SNC as a legitimate body in late 2011.
2012
January: The French journalist Gilles Jacquier is assassinated in Homs.
March: The regime’s army takes control of the Baba Amr district, the bastion of the rebellion in Homs.
July: The FSA initiates the battle for Damascus and takes control of parts of the city’s suburbs, including Ghouta, but not the capital itself. On July 20, the rebels begin the battle of Aleppo.
2013
April: Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah, decides to fight alongside the Syrian regime. Iran also decides to participate and mobilizes Iraqi and Afghan Shiite militias.
June: The regime’s army sets up several headquarters across the country.
August: The regime undertakes a violent assault to reclaim Ghouta. There is outrage throughout the West because Assad uses chemical weapons in Samalka and Ain Tarma, killing 1,300 people. The possibility of military intervention is even discussed, particularly in France and the United States.
September: The idea of air strikes is abandoned in favor of a resolution from the UN Security Council. Assad is believed to have destroyed his arsenal of chemical weapons.
2014
January: FSA rebels now have to fight Islamic State jihadis from Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), who take the city of Raqqa from them before adopting the name “Islamic State” in June.
Summer: Western concern grows about the progress of Islamic State. Is it wise, as the Russians contend, to support Assad as a defense against the jihadis?
In order to stem Islamic State’s progress, an international coalition of sixty states is set up at the instigation of the United States and France. The coalition bombs Islamic State positions in Iraq in August, and in northeast Syria in September.
2015
January–February: Kurds in the YPG and Peshmerga take Kobane with the support of anti–Islamic State coalition air strikes led by the United States. Control of this strategically placed city near the Turkish border helps slow the influx of jihadis from Turkey into Syria.
September: Assad’s ally Russia starts a campaign of air strikes allegedly tar
geting terrorist groups, but Western sources claim that they mostly target the SFA and help the Assad regime, which is about to collapse, to regain territory.
The Paris public prosecutor opens an inquiry into Bashar al-Assad’s crimes against humanity based on the “César” file: 50,000 photos showing at least 11,000 people who died in Syrian prisons.
2016
March: Discussions intended to bring an end to the conflict take place in Geneva.
September: A truce allows Syria to celebrate Eid al-Adha in peace, but lasts only a few weeks.
November: With US support, Arab–Kurdish forces launch a major offensive to reclaim Raqqa, Islamic State’s capital in Syria, timed to coincide with an attack on Islamic State in Mosul in Iraq.
December: The Syrian regime announces that, thanks to military support from Russia and Iran, it has regained control of Aleppo, its most important victory over the rebels since the beginning of the war.
In late December 2016, a cease-fire is implemented under the aegis of Russia and Turkey but without the United States. It does not last long.
2017
April: The Syrian army attacks the Khan Shaykhun area in northwestern Syria, killing at least eighty-six people, including twenty-seven children. The use of sarin gas is reported and France calls for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council. In the absence of an agreement, the United States unilaterally attacks a Syrian airbase, killing six people.
Over the course of the year, Islamic State progressively loses territories it has taken in Iraq and Syria, but does not withdraw altogether.
2018
February: Western Ghouta is bombed aggressively by the Syrian and Russian armies.
April: After renewed attacks generally assumed to be chemical, the regime announces that it has retaken Ghouta. These chemical attacks provoke retaliatory strikes coordinated by Paris, Washington, and London, and targeting strategic Syrian army positions.
May: The regime destroys the Palestinian refugee camp Al Yarmouk. A law is passed allowing the assets of “displaced” Syrians to be confiscated and used for reconstruction.
June: Lebanon pushes Syrian refugees on its soil (who number some 1.5 million) to return to Syria. By the end of the year, a little over 2,500 of these exiles opt to return home to a country destroyed by seven years of war.
July: Supported by his Iranian and Russian allies, Assad retakes Deraa, the symbolically significant region where the revolt started in 2011.
September–November: A demilitarized zone is instated around Idlib, under Russian and Turkish supervision. Despite this, the regime pulverizes this last rebel stronghold in the country. 50,000 fighters stand up to Assad’s forces there but the strikes are a daily threat to the lives of the 3 million inhabitants (1 million of them children) crammed into the area.
The Syrian conflict has killed between 400,000 and 500,000 people, and displaced 12 million.