From Turkey to Calais, Europe is closing its borders
Audio 19:30
Police officers control a family of migrants near the port of Calais on April 9, 2020. BERNARD BARRON / AFP
By: Frédérique Lebel
23 mins
Accents of Europe on one of the routes of asylum seekers today.
From Turkey where the vast majority of Syrians who fled the war have found refuge, via Greece, the Balkans, the Briançon pass between Italy and France, and Calais facing the British coasts.
A journey strewn with dangers, barbed wire, controls, pushbacks too.
(Replay)
Publicity
First stop the Greek Islands. As a result of the agreement signed with Turkey, charged by the European Union to prevent the departures of boats, arrivals by sea fell by 85% last year (2020). The pandemic also complicated departures. But for those who have nevertheless tried their luck,
Greece is now intractable
. Athens is accused of returning them in defiance of international law.
Joël Bronner's explanations
.
And in the Balkans, borders are also closing.
To bypass Croatia, more and more exiles have been trying for a few months to go through Serbia, then through Romania to reach Northern and Western Europe.
A longer path, more risky too.
Simon Rico
met these asylum seekers on the road.
From Greece to Italy, it is approximately 1,700 km that Mehmet Imani, a 40-year-old Iranian, has traveled.
In 2020, in Briançon, he had been taken care of by volunteer citizens and a reception center, this is where
Juliette Gheerbrant
had collected her testimony.
Families, young children and adolescents take this high-risk passage through the Alps and the Briançon pass
. Journalist
Raphaël Krafft
has written a book on those he calls
“The children of La Clarée”
. The story of these teenagers who left Guinea one day to join France. And that he came across one day in November 2017, with an inhabitant of the region marauding, in the village of Névache, just below the neck of the ladder. He told
Juliette Rengeval
about his investigation and this meeting
.
Les enfants de la Clarée was published by Marchialy editions.
And far north of France in Calais
, this is where we find all those who hope to join Great Britain.
4 and a half years after the dismantling of the Calais jungle, the situation of exiles there is still just as complicated, and boat crossings are increasing,
Lise
Verbeke
...
Last year (2020), we counted more than
9,500 passages
on the Channel , 4 times more than in 2019
.
7 people including an infant have died and 3 are still missing.
During a conference organized by the city of Le Touquet, we asked the
deputy for Pas-de-Calais, Pierre-Henri Dumont,
why this French port was still a dead end, why migrants always tried to cross at the risk of paying for this journey with their lives.
(Replay of April 26, 2021).
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