Investigation into readmssions of forced migrants from Italian sea ports to Greece

Background
Every year, several thousand of refugees and migrants try to reach Italy from Greece crossing the Adriatic Sea hidden in passenger ships or cargo boats, often inside lorries, in limited conditions with severe risks for life. These cross-border movements within The European Union Borders concern, most of all, refugees from countries as Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan and Eritrea, who seek or are in conditions to seek international protection, once arrived in Italian harbors. Among those, there are lots of unaccompanied minors and affected persons belonging to vulnerable categories(such as victims of violence or torture and handicapped persons) or persons who belong to particular protection(family members of refugees). Like the majority of the member states of the European Union, Italy has officially stopped the readmissions of the “Dublin II Refugees” to Greece, since the European Court of Human Rights decided in January 2011, that Greece is not longer capable of protecting the rights of the asylum seekers. Nonetheless the arbitrary and collective readmissions to Greece seem to continue in a systematic way.
Actions on the ground

For 2013, the project intended to bring the Italian authorities to the point of guaranteeing to forced migrants in transit from Greece to Italy a minimum standard of acceptance and a correct procedure to seek international protection. To fulfill this ambition, a team of MEDU, consisting of a coordinator, a doctor and a mediator provided for six months health care to about 100 migrants and asylum seekers in Greece and Italy, collected tens of testimonies and met NGO’s, institutions and single operators.

Outcomes of the project:

• The investigation acquired sufficient data and information, qualitatively and quantitatively, about the practice of arbitrary readmissions from italian harbors to Greece.
• The identified cases of migrants with urgent health problems are adequately assisted.
• The cases which require legal action are reported to the professionals of ASGI.
• Resuming for the next years the questioning of the topicality of the factual readmissions from a juridical point of view to achieve an incidental effect on Italian and European political-institutional standards.
• The case of collective readmissions of endangered persons(such as unaccompanied minors) is published through video for public opinion and policy makers.
• People contacted by the testimonies of the projects are adequately informed about the existence and the procedure of the arbitrary readmissions from Italian harbors to Greece and about the consequences for the forced migrants on basis of their fundamental rights.
• The appropriate institutions (Ministry of Interior) and the relevant policy makers are informed about the outcomes of the investigation.