Migration policy is at the center of election campaigning in the European Union. Migration researchers warn of an erosion of international asylum standards and say refugee children are particularly at risk.
The European Union (EU) took in over 1 million refugees in 2023. The notorious Moria refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos, which was planned for 2,800 people, became a symbol of the bloc’s failed refugee policy: Up to 20,000 men, women and children were housed there, living in catastrophic hygiene and health conditions.
The prevention of such situations must be the top priority, said migration researcher Franck Düvell from the University of Osnabrück at the presentation of the study “Global Refugee Report” (Report globale Flucht 2024) in Berlin this week. However, Düvell pointed out that still, people in many camps still live in “atrocious conditions.”
“Fundamental norms of refugee protection continue to be ignored,” he said.
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The Global Refugee Report is compiled annually by the project “Flight and Refugee Research” made up of migration researchers from the Universities of Erlangen-Nuremberg and Osnabrück, the International Center for Conflict Studies in Bonn and the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS), a think tank for sustainable development policy.
Those who come from a country from which only an average of 20% of applicants have been granted asylum before, will be subjected to an accelerated border procedure with limited rights of appeal and deported directly in the event of rejection.
Düvell’s co-researcher, Petra Bendel from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, expressed her concern that those camps will be overcrowded and conditions inhumane, especially for children and families.
In July, there were reports of Tunisian security forces rounding up hundreds of refugees bound for Europe and transporting them to the country’s desert border area with Libya, where they were abandoned without access to food, water or shelter.
Düvell said Russia’s attack on its neighboring country has triggered the largest refugee movement since World War II, But the situation could get even worse.
The researchers welcomed the EU’s unbureaucratic approach but warned that the Ukranian refugees’ residence status had only been granted temporarily and would end in 2025.
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