WARSAW: The migrants pouring into Europe have changed routes: the crossing between Turkey and Greece is practically closed, but ever greater numbers are risking their lives to cross the Mediterranean between Libya and Italy.
A criminal industry has flourished, while the EU has beefed up its border agency Frontex to try to check the mass migration.
Frontex is at once both good cop and bad cop, rescuing migrants from sinking boats but also dropping them off at welcome centers where they risk being sent back home.
Frontex head Fabrice Leggeri summed up the situation in an interview.
On the shores of Greece there are now “80 or 100 people who arrive every day, whereas we had 2,500 a day” before the agreement with Turkey, said Leggeri.
Among those who arrive from Africa via the central Mediterranean and Libya, whose number is up by more than 40 percent, most come from west Africa. They are Senegalese, Guineans, Nigerians. In 2016 they totalled 180,000.
They are mainly economic migrants and include many young men but also families and young women. Nigerian women are often exploited as prostitutes in Europe.
“It’s not the poorest who leave, because they have to be able to pay the smugglers,” said Leggeri.
According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), of the more than one million people who made it to Europe in 2015, 850,000 crossed into Greece via the Aegean Sea. More than half came from Syria and most of the rest from Afghanistan and Iraq.
Following a landmark EU-Turkey accord in March 2016, the total number arriving in Europe by sea fell that year to around 363,000, IOM figures show.
But as the number of arrivals in Greece dropped, the figures arriving from north Africa started to grow.
By mid-April 2017, “some 36,000 migrants had arrived in Italy since the beginning of the year, or an increase of 43 percent over the same period last year,” according to Frontex.
At the beginning of the most dangerous leg of the trip across the Sahara, the migrants are transported by Tuareg or Tebu nomads, for whom it is a traditional commercial activity, Leggeri said.
The Mediterranean crossing however is run by criminal networks, both big and small, as well as lone smugglers.
At the bottom of the ladder there are petty crooks, sometimes migrants themselves, who become the skippers of the small overloaded boats to pay for their own crossing, according to Leggeri.
Then there are the middlemen who collect the money and organize the trip but who do not board. Their bosses are the network chiefs who “likely include people who previously worked in the police force” in Libya, Leggeri said.
Coming up with an estimate is not easy but according to a recent report by the EU’s law enforcement agency Europol, gangs smuggling migrants to or within Europe raked in 4.7 billion-5.7 billion euros ($5.1 billion-$6.1 billion) in 2015.
But those profits dropped by nearly two billion euros last year.
The major traffickers use money earned smuggling migrants to undertake other criminal activities that require an initial investment, “be it drug trafficking, arms trafficking, or even terrorism financing — we can’t exclude it,” Leggeri said.
The funds are sometimes moved openly through money transfer service Western Union, especially in west Africa. In east Africa, traffickers more often use “hawala,” an informal system of payment based on trust that is far more difficult to trace than bank transfers.
Migrants from west Africa begin by taking the bus, Leggeri said. The territory of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is somewhat similar to the visa-free Schengen zone, as individuals can travel freely within it for a modest fee of around 20 euros.
Once the migrants arrive in Niamey, capital of Niger, the illegal activity begins and they must fork out up to 150 euros each to reach the north of the country and the Libyan border.
Then comes the crossing which can cost up to 1,000 euros, depending on the boat. Individuals can, for example, pay 300 euros for a place on an inflatable boat, but those journeys are particularly risky.
The east Africa route — which originates from the Horn of Africa and is taken by Eritreans, Somalians and Ethiopians — is more expensive.
The journey is organized by national criminal gangs that work together, so a Sudanese network, for example, will hand over its clients to a Libyan network at the border.
“There, the fee can run to 3,000 euros, from the Horn of Africa all the way to Italy,” Leggeri said.
The turning point came in 2015, when the migrant crisis hit Greece, leading Europe to reinforce Frontex.
“In early 2015, we were able to deploy around 300 to 350 border guards at any given moment. Today, we’re able to have 1,300 to 1,400 border guards deployed at once across several fields of operation,” Leggeri said.
In 2016, Europe established a rapid reaction pool of 1,500 border guards who can be deployed within five working days if necessary.
At the same time, Frontex is looking to work upstream to stop the migration influx before it reaches the Mediterranean. The agency recently opened an office in Niamey to reinforce its collaboration with authorities in Niger.
Paradoxically, the sea rescues encourage migration and benefit the smugglers who load up their rickety boats with more and more people while assuring the migrants that once they leave Libyan waters they will be taken care of.
“There have never been as many boats patrolling the Mediterranean as in 2016... and unfortunately there have never been as many deaths, 4,000 deaths most probably according to the IOM,” Leggeri said.
He has a message for any country with potential migrants to Europe: the paradise expected “is a lie.”
“Either you die in the Mediterranean, or you arrive in Europe under extremely deplorable conditions. It’s not the El Dorado that the smugglers describe,” Leggeri said.
“And on top of that the EU is reinforcing a return policy, a repatriation policy, so what risks happening is that the migrants lose their savings to pay the smugglers and at the end of their journey there’s a plane that takes them back to their country of origin.”
Even if the great crisis that hit the Greek islands appears to be over, migratory pressure at Europe’s borders shows no signs of evaporating.
Geopolitical instability, like the conflict in Syria or the chaos in Libya and Iraq, will continue to lead asylum seekers to Europe. Others will come because of poverty or for demographic reasons.
As long as the countries of origin are unable to offer their residents a suitable quality of life and suitable prospects, “men and women will move, as they always have in human history,” Leggeri said.
Migrant influx shifting but no let-up: Frontex
Migrant influx shifting but no let-up: Frontex
France’s prison population reaches all-time high
- Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin, who has called the overcrowding crisis “unacceptable,” has suggested building new facilities to accommodate the growing prison population
PARIS: France’s prison population hit a record high on May 1, with 83,681 inmates held in facilities that have a capacity of just 62,570, justice ministry data showed on Saturday.
Over the past year, France’s prison population grew by 6,000 inmates, taking the occupancy rate to 133.7 percent.
The record overcrowding has even seen 23 out of France’s 186 detention facilities operating at more than twice their capacity.
Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin, who has called the overcrowding crisis “unacceptable,” has suggested building new facilities to accommodate the growing prison population.
The hard-line minister announced in mid-May a plan to build a high-security prison in French Guiana — an overseas territory situated north of Brazil — for the most “dangerous” criminals, including drug kingpins.
Prison overcrowding is “bad for absolutely everyone,” said Darmanin in late April, citing the “appalling conditions” for prisoners and “the insecurity and violence” faced by prison officers.
A series of coordinated attacks on French prisons in April saw assailants torching cars, spraying the entrance of one prison with automatic gunfire, and leaving mysterious inscriptions.
The assaults embarrassed the right-leaning government, whose tough-talking ministers — Darmanin and Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau — have vowed to step up the fight against narcotics.
And in late April, lawmakers approved a major new bill to combat drug-related crime, with some of France’s most dangerous drug traffickers facing detention in high-security prison units in the coming months.
France ranks among the worst countries in Europe for prison overcrowding, placing third behind Cyprus and Romania, according to a Council of Europe study published in June 2024.
Evacuation order for 11 villages on Ukraine border with Russia
- Russia’s defense ministry on Saturday said its forces had taken another Sumy village, Vodolagy, known as Vodolahy in Ukrainian
KYIV: Authorities in Ukraine’s Sumy region bordering Russia on Saturday ordered the mandatory evacuation of 11 villages because of bombardments, as Kyiv feared a Russian offensive there.
“This decision takes into account the constant threat to civilian lives because of the bombardments of border communities,” Sumy’s administration said.
Russia’s defense ministry on Saturday said its forces had taken another Sumy village, Vodolagy, known as Vodolahy in Ukrainian.
Russia in recent weeks has claimed to have taken several villages in the northeastern region, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said this week that Moscow was massing more than 50,000 soldiers nearby in a sign of a possible offensive.
A spokesman for Ukraine’s border guard service, Andriy Demchenko, on Thursday said that Russia was poised to “attempt an attack” on Sumy.
He said the Russian troop build-up began when Moscow’s forces fought Ukrainian soldiers who last year had entered the Russian side of the border, in the Kursk region.
Russia has recently retaken control of virtually all of Kursk.
Currently, Russia — which launched its all-out invasion in February 2022 — controls around 20 percent of Ukrainian territory. The ongoing conflict has killed tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians on both sides.
Washington has been leading diplomatic efforts to try to bring about a ceasefire, but Kyiv and Moscow accuse each other of not wanting peace.
The Kremlin has proposed further negotiations in Istanbul on Monday, after a May 16 round of talks that yielded little beyond a large prisoner-of-war exchange.
Kyiv has not yet said whether it will attend the Istanbul meeting, and is demanding that Moscow drop its opposition to an immediate truce.
Afghanistan welcomes upgraded diplomatic ties with Pakistan
- The move signals easing tensions between the neighboring countries have cooled in recent months
- Tensions fueled by security concerns and a campaign by Islamabad to expel tens of thousands of Afghans
KABUL: Afghanistan has welcomed the decision to upgrade diplomatic relations with Pakistan, where the Taliban government’s foreign minister is due to travel in the coming days, his office said on Saturday.
The move signals easing tensions between the neighboring countries, as relations between the Taliban authorities and Pakistan – already rocky – have cooled in recent months, fueled by security concerns and a campaign by Islamabad to expel tens of thousands of Afghans.
Pakistan’s top diplomat on Friday said the charge d’affaires stationed in Kabul would be elevated to the rank of ambassador, with Kabul later announcing its representative in Islamabad would also be upgraded.
“This elevation in diplomatic representation between Afghanistan & Pakistan paves the way for enhanced bilateral cooperation in multiple domains,” the Aghan foreign ministry said on X.
Kabul’s Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi is due to visit Pakistan “in the coming days,” ministry spokesman Zia Ahmad Takal said.
Muttaqi met with Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar in May in Beijing as part of a trilateral meeting with their Chinese counterpart Wang Yi.
Wang afterwards announced Kabul and Islamabad’s intention to exchange ambassadors and expressed Beijing’s willingness “to continue to assist with improving Afghanistan-Pakistan ties.”
Dar hailed the “positive trajectory” of Pakistan-Afghanistan relations on Friday, saying the upgrading of their representatives would “promote further exchanges between two fraternal countries.”
Only a handful of countries – including China – have agreed to host Taliban government ambassadors since their return to power in 2021, with no country yet formally recognizing the administration.
Russia last month said it would also accredit a Taliban government ambassador, days after removing the group’s “terrorist” designation.
China rebukes Macron's comparison of Ukraine and Taiwan
- China's embassy fired back that the "Taiwan question is entirely China's internal affair
SINGAPORE: China hit back at French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday for drawing a connection between the Ukraine conflict and the fate of Taiwan, saying the two issues are "different in nature, and not comparable at all".
"Comparing the Taiwan question with the Ukraine issue is unacceptable," China's embassy in Singapore said on social media, a day after Macron warned Asian defence officials in Singapore not to view Russia's invasion of Ukraine as a far-away problem.
"If we consider that Russia could be allowed to take a part of the territory of Ukraine without any restriction, without any constraint, without any reaction of the global order, how would you phrase what could happen in Taiwan?" Macron told the Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia's premier annual security forum.
"What would you do the day something happens in the Philippines?"
China's embassy fired back that the "Taiwan question is entirely China's internal affair. There is but one China in the world, and Taiwan is an inalienable part of China's territory."
While Taiwan considers itself a sovereign nation, China has said it will not rule out using force to bring it under its control.
US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth warned Saturday at the same forum in Singapore that China was "credibly preparing" to use military force to upend the balance of power in Asia, adding the Chinese military was building the capabilities to invade Taiwan and "rehearsing for the real deal".
South Koreans rally for presidential hopefuls days before vote
- All major polls have placed liberal Lee Jae-myung well ahead in the presidential race
SEOUL: Thousands of supporters of South Korea’s two leading presidential candidates rallied on Saturday in Seoul, days before a vote triggered by the ex-leader’s disastrous declaration of martial law.
Tuesday’s election caps months of political turmoil sparked by Yoon Suk Yeol’s brief suspension of civilian rule in December, for which he was impeached and removed from office.
All major polls have placed liberal Lee Jae-myung well ahead in the presidential race, with a recent Gallup survey showing 49 percent of respondents viewed him as the best candidate.
Kim Moon-soo, from the conservative People Power Party (PPP) that Yoon left this month, trailed behind at 35 percent.
Organizers from both camps told police they expected tens of thousands of supporters to rally in Seoul on Saturday.
In Seocho, in the south of the capital, Lee supporters gathered holding signs condemning Yoon’s “insurrection.”
“I believe the outcome of the presidential election is already decided,” Lee Kyung-joon, a Lee supporter, told AFP.
“I came to today’s rally to help condemn the forces involved in the martial law attempt,” he added, referring to ex-president Yoon’s political allies.
Yoon is currently on trial for insurrection, and Kwon Oh-hyeok, one of the organizers of Saturday’s rally, said a Lee victory in the June 3 vote was crucial to holding him accountable.
“Isn’t the People Power Party’s decision to run in the snap election — triggered by Yoon’s removal from office — an insult and a betrayal of the people?” Kwon told rally participants.
“Fellow citizens, we must win by a landslide to deliver the justice this moment demands.”
On the other side of town, in Gwanghwamun Square, conservatives — including supporters of disgraced ex-leader Yoon — filled the streets holding signs that read “Yoon Again” and “Early voting is invalid!“
Yoon’s martial law attempt, which he claimed was necessary to “root out” pro-North Korean, “anti-state” forces, emboldened a wave of extreme supporters including far-right YouTubers and radical religious figures.
Many have spread unverified content online, including allegations of Chinese espionage and fraud within South Korea’s electoral system.
That sentiment was on full display at Saturday’s rally, where protesters called for the dissolution of the National Election Commission over a series of mishaps during the two-day early voting period this week.
“People believe the root of all these problems lies with the National Election Commission, and that it should be held accountable,” conservative protester Rhee Kang-san told AFP.
Both frontrunner Lee of the liberal Democratic Party and conservative challenger Kim have cast the race as a battle for the soul of the country.
More than a third of those eligible cast their ballots in early voting on Thursday and Friday, according to the election commission.
Overseas voting reached a record high, with nearly four-fifths of the 1.97 million eligible voters casting their ballots last week.
Experts say that regardless of who wins, South Korea’s polarization is likely to deepen.
If Lee wins, the conservatives “will do whatever it takes to undermine him and his government, whether their logic makes sense or not,” political analyst Park Sang-byung told AFP.
“Unless the PPP distances itself from Yoon’s extremist base, it could turn to misinformation — such as unfounded claims of election fraud — to mobilize the right against Lee. That’s a troubling prospect,” he said.
Whoever succeeds Yoon will also have to grapple with a worsening economic downturn, one of the world’s lowest birth rates, the soaring cost of living and bellicose neighbor North Korea.
He will also have to navigate a mounting superpower standoff between the United States, South Korea’s traditional security guarantor, and China, its largest trade partner.
