“Building fences, using tear gas and other forms of violence against immigrants and asylum seekers, detention, prevents access to basic needs such as shelter, food or water and the continued use of threatening language or hate speech will not make migrants stop coming or try to reach Europe.” This explicit pronouncement was made by the UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants, François Crépeau, before the images of refugees arriving in Macedonia and Greece.
Crépeau was speaking one day after thousands of immigrants , many from Syria, kept crossing the Balkans by bus and boat to reach the central and northern Europe.
In this sense, the rapporteur pointed out that the territorial sovereignty refers to “control the border, know who enters and who exits” but not to “seal the border to migration” . “Giving migrants and asylum seekers the legal solutions that ensure safe mobility control”, he assured.
He also called on European states to create a massive resettlement program for refugees and Syrians and Eritreans who could provide protection for 1.5 or 2 million of them in the next five years.
Finally it has rejected some of the terms used to refer to refugees as “flow” or “crowd”, generating “images that link them with toxic waste and natural disasters” . “We are talking about men, women, children and even babies, who have faced traumatic experiences,” he concluded. (via La Marea)