MEPs on fact-finding mission to Lampedusa refugee camp

By David Cronin

Date: 08/09/05

A cross-party delegation from the European Parliament will visit Lampedusa next week (15-16 September) to investigate allegations that asylum-seekers are being detained in unhealthy conditions on the Mediterranean island.

Lampedusa has become the focus of attention because of frequent landings by would-be migrants to the EU from the north African coast. Lampedusa, which is Italian territory, is 200km south-west of Sicily, but only 110 km from Tunisia.

The visit by eight or nine MEPs from the Parliament's committee on civil liberties follows a similar visit by representatives of the European United Left (GUE) political group in late June.

In their report, the GUE depicted an austere regime in a centre consisting of four prefabricated containers, where 206 people were being held at the time. Despite intense heat, the detainees complained that they were receiving only one bottle of water per day for every two people. Many were also found to be suffering from severe dermatitis - possibly because they were taking showers with salty water.

The GUE also alleged that 900 migrants, until then detained in the same centre, had been flown to an undisclosed destination from the adjoining airport shortly before the visit.

Some 10,000 migrants arrived on Lampedusa in 2004 and almost half that number have landed there in January-July 2005.

Richard Williams from the European Council on Refugees and Exile (ECRE), an umbrella group of national associations working with asylum-seekers, said that the water deprivation noted by the GUE could be worse than in some refugee camps in Africa.

He urged the MEPs travelling to Lampedusa next week to raise with the Italian authorities reports of group deportations from Lampedusa, especially reports that Egyptian migrants had been sent to Libya, rather than to their homeland. "We want the MEPs to ask the right questions," William added. "Are people who wish to claim asylum given access to that procedure on an individual basis?"

One of the MEPs in the delegation, German Socialist Wolfgang Kreissl-Dörfler, has drafted the Parliament's position on the proposed EU directive for granting and withdrawing refugee status.

His draft report, expected to be endorsed by the entire assembly later this month, criticises the proposal for allowing the fast-track deportation of asylum-seekers to certain states outside the Union on the basis that they are 'super-safe countries' and that nobody returned to them would face ill-treatment. Kreissl-Dörfler contends that the concept "risks being a violation of international refugee law" as no category of asylum-seeker should be completely denied access to an asylum procedure. He notes that the UN's refugee agency, the UNHCR, has sought its deletion from the directive.

Kreissl-Dörfler said that the Parliament was examining the possibility of legal action against the Council of Ministers unless it bowed to MEPs' demands. But he said that there would be discussion with the UK presidency of the EU before embarking on any legal action.

Following two years of deliberations, EU governments agreed on the main planks of the directive in April 2004 but decided to consult MEPs before finalising it. Nonetheless, Kreissl-Dörfler has complained that the Council has broken the spirit of the EU treaties by concluding discussions without waiting for the Parliament's official opinion.

British diplomats say that they expect the directive will be adopted without debate by justice and interior ministers at their meeting in Luxembourg on 12-13 October.

Speaking in Strasbourg yesterday (7 September), the UK Home Secretary Charles Clarke defended his country's deportation of non-EU nationals for security reasons. But he added: "It would be wrong to deport people to torture and we're against that."

Preview of a visit to the Mediterranean island of Lampedusa by a cross-party delegation from the European Parliament, 15-16 September 2005, to investigate allegations that asylum-seekers were being detained in unhealthy conditions. Lampedusa had become the focus of attention because of frequent landings by would-be migrants to the EU from the north African coast. Lampedusa, which is Italian territory, is 200km south-west of Sicily, but only 110 km from Tunisia. The visit by eight or nine MEPs from the European Parliament's Committee on Civil Liberties followed a similar visit by representatives of the European United Left (GUE) political group in late June 2005. Article also touches upon the proposed EU Directive for granting and withdrawing refugee status, expected to be adopted without debate by Justice and Interior Ministers at their Council meeting in Luxembourg on 12-13 October 2005.