The film was shot on a field trip of the collective “Borderlans of Europe” in september 2008. English subtitle.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

In the moment, it is planned to built up one of these additional detention centres in Dercen. Members of the BMP visited the village in March 2010.

About Derecen

Dercen is a village with about 3000 citizens. All hungarian speaking. It’s a village like many others in the region: The income is low, almost everyone has a garden and animals. In the village exists only one shop. A restaurant which is closed sundays with disko for the youth in the evening. Two or three places to buy drinks. Dercen is located near to the former detention centre Pavshino, which was closed in December 2008. Dercen is about 20 kilometres away from the border to Hungary.

History of the territory, where the camp should be constructed

The territory was used by military from the 1950-ies to the late 1980-ies. Ttill now, it belongs to the Ministry of Defence. Now it should be given to the Ministry of Interior. Citizens of Dercen speak about “recommunilization” of this object. Because of higher cancer rates in Dercen in 2004 a reseacher group from Holland examinated the water in the village. They proofed, if the source of polluted water was the former military base in the forest. The soldiers didn’t use their fountain already in the 80-ies.  2004 it became official,  that the military base is polluted.

Actual situation
Till today, the Ministry of defence didn’t spend a dime on cleaning up, so the voice of the village. Instead, they cut these days 200 year old threes and a company already started to seize the territory for the new constructions. A source spoke about a company from Great Britain, which will built the centre and would get 3,5 Million € for this mandate. Two villages, Dercen and Fornosh collected signatures against the detention centre. 2000 in Dercen and 1000 in Fornosh voted against the centre. This means, almost all adults are against the centre. A party leader of one of the two parties of hungarian minorities expressed in a meeting, that the local representatives of the parties which now rule the country should be set under social pressure. If the new goverment really wants to build the detention centre against the will of local population, this reprasentatives should be expelled from community, like church, associations…

URC_Press_Release

Update: The detention centre was renovated in the end of 2009. The report draw on the situation before. We are working on actualisation.

BMP_Chop_report_2010_amended

Letter from the Odessa Association of African Refugees (OAAR) in Ukrainian to the Regional UNHCR office Kiev and representatives of humanitarian organizations, ambassadors and representatives of international and national mass Medias. For all people, who respect the principles of human right and Democracy.

We are in danger,

by the request of the non-governmental organization “Odessa Association of African Refugees” (OAAR) and the residents of the Center for Temporary Accommodation of Refugees (CTAR) a mission of the Regional UNHCR office had arrived in Odessa and on 25 February 2010held a meeting with recognized refugees, asylum seekers and former refugees, who have naturalized in the Ukrainian society. This meeting was led by the commission of the Regional UNHCR office Mrs. Kate Pooler, a protection advisor, and Mrs. Anna Kuznyetsova, resettlement service assistance.

This meeting has been recorded on six video discs and can render you at any time.

For a period of six years, me as a general secretariat of the OAAR informed the Regional UNHCR office, the authorities of the Ukrainian government, national and international humanitarian organs and diplomatic sector in Ukraine and around the world about what is going on here in Odessa. Odessa is ruled by Mafia model.

We understand very well, that Ukraine is a weak country to give an asylum for those, who arrive here. Understanding this we tried to live here searching appropriate circumstances, but even though we closed our eyes, mouth and ears for the xenophobia, racial discrimination and hating the so highly corrupted authorities of Odessa didn’t give us the possibility to survive as a human being. We are considered here as wild animals. To mention some points:

• Asylum seekers are forced to pay a large amount of bribe for the interpretation service, which they are supposed to get. For this, the administration of the migration department established a mafia structure.The main intermediaries in this structure are recognize refugees and naturalized former refugees, who are living in the CTAR. Money is rendered to this people and will be transferred to others later.

• Asylum seekers are forced to pay for the dormitory where they live.

• Asylum seekers are punished with food, since the authorities announced that the country is poor and has no means to feed them. After so many months of famine the UNHCR decided to fund the food consumption, but the authorities of the CTAR aren’t cooperative to supply this. Food supplies are distributed only when a delegate or a commission arrives in the CTAR “for show”.

• Asylum seekers are asked to collect money for deliberately broken water pipes, toilet and kitchen device and even for repairing the building. On this meeting residents of the CTAR have informed the representatives of the regional UNHCR office how the staff of the CTAR remove a working device and implanted it later the old one, when the residents collect and give the asked amount of money.

• Asylum seekers are subjected to travel four hours by foot every month (only one way) to reach the court, where their cases are supposed to be hear. This is because almost all didn’t have an income.

• Asylum seekers are not able to renew their residence, because the visa and registration department is too far and it is madness to start to go by foot to reach it.

• Asylum seekers, who are women even didn’t have a possibility to buy hygiene materials during their menstrual period.

• Asylum seekers who are Africans are subjected to free and frequent work in the territory of the CTAR and out of it.

• Asylum seekers are subjected to live in darkness, since the light is working only from 6:00 to 10:00 morning and 16:00 to 22:00 night. All the rest of the day, light will be turned -off.

• Asylum seekers complained repeatedly, that there is no supply of hot water even in the winter time, thus the rooms are too cold and aren’t even able to take shower.

• sylum seekers complained repeatedly, that the heating device, which they are using to heat water are usually collected by the administration of the CTAR and destroyed. The representatives of the regional UNHCR office Mrs. Kate Pooler a protection advisor, and Mrs. Anna Kuznyetsova, resettlement service assistance, have been a witness on an occasion (25 February 2010), when the deputy director of the CTAR broke a heater of a resident.

• Asylum seekers complained that the electrical device, which they used to cook food are deliberately broken down by the staff of the CTAR, since this is a way how they are able to ask a financial assistance from the government and the UNHCR regional office. Even after getting assistance they will fix the old one and will never buy a new one. Individual devices are not allowed, thus families with children and residents who have a job are subjected to wait too long time to send them to school and go to their job in time respectively.

• Asylum seekers and recognized refugees complain that there is no futurity in this country, since the possibility to marry a Ukrainian woman is zero. The ultimate goal of life is to found a family and give a generation, but this goal became only a vision because we are considered in the society like garbage; and no woman wants to be a wife for garbage.Even those Ukrainian women, who have found a family with African citizens, are very sorry of their decision. Many fled leaving their children with their father. This is because most of the population didn’t accept their decision; often they hear insult on their children and their address.

• Asylum seekers who used to complain are asked to reach the commission, which determine whom to live and whom to evict and are warned, terrified and even evicted. The laws of Ukraine on refugees, which propose that refugees and asylum seekers have the right for individual and collectively complain, fail to work, because the law of the state committee on migration, nationality and religion, which declare that an asylum seeker has a right to live in the CTAR only for three months of time. Residents, who close their mouth and live are allowed to live an infinite period of time, whereas people who insist their right are asked to leave the CTAR.

Dear Sir/Dear Madame,

Countries, which signed the human right convention and convention of UNHCR on refugees and its protocol, did many things for the adaptation of refugees and asylum seekers. Refugees got the appropriate respect. Even in this period of crisis refugees and asylum seekers are able to survive in these countries. People, who are trying to change their life, have enormous possibilities for survival. In most of these countries law and regulations are practical. People have a guarantee in their life. Even though there are some problems, the society in these countries is welcomed for refugees and asylum seekers.

Ukraine became a weak country. This weakness came not because the country didn’t have the potential, but mainly because of the authorized personals. They deliberately form a mafia network. Especially in towns like Odessa this network is highly sophisticated. The human right convention and convention of UNHCR on refugees and its protocol are not practical at all. There is no integration of refuges. African citizens didn’t have respect at all. It is impossible to survive in this country.

We are not able to survive here, because we are supposed to pay everywhere bribes; especially for the police forces. Law and regulations of the country are practical only if you have money. We don’t have a guarantee not only in our future life, but also in the present time. We and our children might become a victim of a skinhead attack or any other bandits.

Since the society fall in a deep poverty they are looking us like an enemy, as if the causes of all these problems are foreigners.

In this period, even those naturalized compatriots of ours are very sorry, because they took the citizenship of Ukraine. Being a citizen they are supposed to expense all in all from their pocket and which is impossible.

Looking them, many refused to be naturalized. There is a reported case that an asthmatic man, who has been naturalized and have an asthmatic child fall in a great problem, since the father is not able to buy even a flacon for asthmatic attack both for him and for his 14 years daughter.

This man was not able to come on a very serious meeting, because he wasn’t having 4 UAH (Half a Dollar). We are very sorry that being a Ukrainian people fall in such a great problems. The authorities, who were supposed to build a suitable circumstance for the better integration of refugees in the Ukrainian society didn’t do that, because they are running to make a large amount of money. By their concept a refugee itself is money, thus especially in Odessa some refugees are not able to get a decision in a court for even 14 years; whereas it is permitted to stay in the CTAR only for three months. Where asylum seekers can stay 14 years in Ukraine , where you can’t get a job or any other income? This is a corrupted system, where every member of this system is supporting each other or blackmailing those, who are dangerous for them. The court system itself is well corrupted with the migration department. There is a conspiracy in between them not to reject an asylum seeker more than two times. If an asylum seeker got a rejection three times, then he has a great possibility to be resettled to a third country. That means the number of asylum seekers might fall dawn and the income will be minimal.

Very sadly to recognize that we became commodities.

Dear Sir/Dear Madame,

Again a mission of the Regional UNHCR office had arrived in Odessa and held a meeting with recognized refugees, asylum seekers and former refugees, who have naturalized in the Ukrainian society on 12 March 2010.

This meeting was led by the commission of the Regional UNHCR office Mrs.

Kate Pooler, Meliha Hadziabdic and a representative of the state committee of Ukraine in refuges, minority and religion Mrs. Natalie. This meeting has been recorded on four video discs and can render you at any time.

On this meeting residents openly declared for whom they rendered money as a fee for interpretation, how they arrive in Odessa, How they have been attacked by skinheads and the criminals all released paying money for the police, about the corruption in the police departments, humiliation in the CTAR, how the administration, mainly the deputy director violate their human right and about all what was stated on the meeting, which was held on 25 February 2010.

Even though the representative of the state committee of Ukraine in refuges, minority and religion Mrs. Natalie announced that the administration of the CTAR will not evict anyone in the future 2 months of period; arriving the CTAR after the meeting, some residents are asked to leave the CTAR today, however many are informed to be on the commission, which will be held today on 15 March 2010. This must not be done. The residents of the CTAR and other refugees are very depressed, exhausted, distorted and without any good sense inside, thus potentially they are very dangerous. They can do whatever a person can’t imagine. Their expressions were very serious and notable and before a tragedy came we must hear what they want and change all in all the staff of the migration department starting from its director Mr. Suprunovsky Ivan Petrovitch and all of the administration of the CTAR. If this will not be done this family business which is run by these people may cause a very serious damage.

Even though refugees and asylum seekers are trying to close their eyes, mouth and ears for the xenophobia, racial discrimination and hating the so highly corrupted authorities of Odessa didn’t give us the possibility to survive as a human being and to integrate in the Ukrainian society. The concept integration is used to close our mouth and no more. There might not be integration in a country, where recognized refugees and even neutralized former refugees with a Ukrainian passport are hurrying to be accommodated in the accommodation center for refugees. We are in danger because we are organized; we are in danger because we are blacks; we are in danger because we talk to insist our right: we are in danger in all aspects.

There is a necessity to resettle all Africans from this country, since it is impossible to integrate here.

We are waiting your cooperation and nobody must be evicted from the CTAR today.

Sincerely,
Odessa Association of African Refugees

Here you can see her really impressive Audioslide-Show (English):

The bordermonitoring project participated in these protests and published a press release:

Press Statement

Brussels, 30 November 2009

So far, the case of the Eastern borders of the European Union raises less attention than the southern sea borders. This is because the situation on the land borders is less dramatic, less visible and less tragic as few refugees and other vulnerable migrants lose their life in search of protection. The situation in the borderlands of Ukraine, Hungary and Slovakia, however, raises major concerns.

Large-scale unlawful return from Hungary and Slovakia

In 2006, according to Ukrainian authorities, 1,400 asylum seekers were refused access to protection in Hungary and Slovakia and unlawfully returned to Ukraine.

• In June 2008, a young Somali man, age 22, crossed the border to Hungary illegally and was apprehended. He claimed international protection, “please, help” he asked. Within 12 hours he was returned to Ukraine. There he was held at a border guard station for 48 hours, insulted and beaten. Subsequently, he was detained for a total of 8 month.
• In June 2009, an Afghan boy, age 16, half-orphan, entered Hungary clandestinely with the aim to find international protection. He was apprehended by the policy, interrogated by border police, and returned to Ukraine within 24 hours. There he has no relatives, is placed in a refugee reception centre where he receives no counseling or schooling.
• In July 2009, a young Somali girl, age 16, entered Hungary clandestinely from Ukraine. She was apprehended and applied for asylum; nevertheless she was returned back to Ukraine within 24 hours.

Unviable conditions for refugees and other vulnerable migrants in Ukraine
In Ukraine, the asylum system is corrupt and asylum seekers have to pay bribes at any stage; recognition rates are as low is 1-3 percent; there is no subsidiary protection for refugees from war regions. Asylum seekers and refugees have no or limited access to regular housing, health care, benefits of any kind, regular employment, education or language classes. Clandestine border crossers are detained for six month and even beyond the legal maximum indiscriminately whether they are refugees or economic migrants. Standards of detention facilities are often in violation of human rights. For example, Chop detention centre holds 33 detainees in a 25 m² room who share 16 beds; there is only one toilet but no bathroom. Food rations are on less than €1/day and detainees are generally malnourished.

Conclusion
Asylum seekers and other vulnerable migrants in need of international protection, including unaccompanied minors and young women are frequently pushed back from Hungary and Slovakia to Ukraine. This is a gross violation of the Geneva refugee convention as well as the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Ukraine is not a safe country for asylum seekers, refugees and other vulnerable migrants and they should not be returned to Ukraine.

The eastern route and the IOM
In the early nineties at the latest the Ukraine caught the eye of the so-called risk analysts, not merely as an emigration country but also as an essential passage for the “eastern human trafficking route”. The country was not an EU-candidate and therefore – contrary to its western neighbouring states Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Rumania – also not under the obligation to adopt the so-called Schengen Standards. Against this background the IOM (1) at first played the executive part in “outposting” the EU Migration Regime to the most important transit migration country in the east. As early as 1998 an IOM team of experts met with high-ranking Ukrainian government officials in Kiev to start up a “Migration Management Program“. At several levels it was directed against transit migration: the registration and documentation of refugees and immigrants, the set-up of a first deportation camp in Pawschino (2), training courses for the Ukrainian border guards at the  US-Mexican border and equipment of a pilot project in Kharkiv (at the Russian border) with radio and infrared technology. “In the course of their work the IOM specialists were confronted with a – for them surprising – problem: they found that more than 70% of the transit migrants entered the Ukraine legally. The government was therefore offered help in introducing new laws and visa regulations. Thus immigration into the Ukraine was first criminalized under the direction of the IOM, in order to be subsequently fought against with means made available by the IOM” (3).

European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP)
The IOM is active in the Ukraine up to this day, in 2008 in particular by setting up the deportation prison in Zhuravychi/Volyn, a brand-new clink equipped according to EU standards and financed with EU means. But the responsibility for the preparation of this “perfect buffer state” has meanwhile been taken over by EU authorities and institutions. The aforementioned clink is part of a comprehensive asylum and migration program, which is being installed since 2004 within the scope of the so-called “European Neighbourhood Policy“ (ENP). ENP was developed in 2004, with the objective of “avoiding the emergence of new dividing lines between the enlarged EU and our neighbours and instead strengthening the prosperity, stability and security of all concerned”, the European Commission euphemistically formulates it. For indeed “an individual plan is made for each EU-neighbouring state, the plan always implying migration-specific regulations as well. A concrete perspective of accession is not offered, but in reward cooperative states can expect visa and trade facilitations as well as special support programs, for which the EU demands on the one hand efficient guarding of the borders and on the other effective readmission treaties. For the Ukraine the ENP-Program for 2007-2010 made available an aggregate support amount of 494 million euro, 30 million euro of which are for the establishment of another five internment camps for immigrants in the context of Readmission-related Assistance”(4). And in the so-called GDISC Ukraine Project (5) several EU states assume functionally-differentiated “sponsorships”. Thus Hungary will assist the Ukraine in setting up eight so-called “screening centres” having the function of selecting between “people in need of protection” and “illegal migrants”, which centres are not to be established at the European external borders, but rather at the eastern borders with Russia. They will serve on the one hand to hold so-called “initial interviews” and will on the other hand provide internment facilities for up to ten days. Further areas of the GDISC Project are: support of Polish authorities for the implementation of asylum procedures, information about countries of origin by Slovakia,  passing on of “best-practice” experiences with returns by the UK, expansion of the visa regime by the Netherlands, as well as the long-term internment of “illegal migrants“ by liaison officers of the Czech Republic (4).

Frontex Five Borders
Finally, this Europe-wide “division of labour“ is completed by the supplementary activities of the EU border patrol agency. For the Ukraine 11 June 2007 ought to be written in the history books as the day the starting shot was given for the Frontex-era. On this day, still under German EU presidency, a first treaty between Frontex and the Ukraine was negotiated and finalized in Luxemburg. Schäuble was the chairman and present were Frattini (6) and on behalf of the Ukraine the Ministers of Home Affairs and of Justice. “Tackling illegal migration and organized crime invariably requires a joint response” Schäuble allegedly said in this meeting. And the arrangements made in view of  “the strengthening of border security by intensifying border patrols as well as the exchange of information“ obviously constituted the basis for a first Frontex operation that started shortly thereafter under the name “Five Borders” and for the first time involved Ukrainian border guards. This pilot project, which ran from July until December 2007 (7), was divided into four sub-projects which, as Ursus I to IV, aimed at improving the cooperation of the border patrols at the Slovakian, Polish, Rumanian and Hungarian borders to the Ukraine. With a total of 350,000 Euro the budget of the operations was still relatively small. The “yield” – approx. 100 run-in “illegal migrants“ in the border area and 250 entry refusals (8) – also seems rather symbolic. But Frontex was obviously less concerned about efficiency, than about for the first time involving the Ukrainian border authorities in guarding the external borders of the EU in the east. The Frontex operations for 2009, named Jupiter, are also focusing on the Slovakian-Ukrainian border because there “the pressure of illegal migration is continuously high”.

Readmission Treaty and Refoulement
Finally I will comment on the perhaps most important treaty, which in the years to come might turn the Ukraine, in the literal sense of the word, into a hot spot. What was set on foot with the ENP procedures as well as at the Frontex meeting in Luxemburg, came into force in its first step in January 2008: the Readmission Treaty between the EU and the Ukraine. This first step concerns the “readmission“ of Ukrainian citizens who are picked up in EU States and should be deported more quickly. The second and decisive step will, as from January 2010, also involve third-country nationals, that is refugees and immigrants who pass through the Ukraine on their way to the EU. The Ukraine will not only be totally overloaded in terms of infrastructure with thousands of additional returns, but the mentioned efforts in the context of the ENP Program and in particular the Readmission Treaty rather show the strategic purpose of the EU: to certify as soon as possible that the Ukraine is a safe third-country. For in spite of new treaties the EU border guards are actually under the obligation to differentiate between “illegal migrants” and asylum-seeking refugees. As long as the Ukraine is not a safe third-country, the latter may theoretically not be send back. But as early as 2006 the UNHCR reported about unlawful returns of Chechen refugees from Slovakia to the Ukraine. And border-monitoring initiatives in Hungary and in Western-Ukraine again found in the early summer of 2009 that Somalian and Afghan refugees were regularly denied access to asylum procedures. Rounded up in the Hungarian border region, the persons concerned are turned over to the Ukrainian border guards, who intern them up to six months in the wretched and crammed full deportation camp of Chop (9). In the same way as put into practice in the Mediterranean by Greek and Italian border guards (who are at least covered if not supported by Frontex!), the Non-Refoulement prohibition is also systematically violated at the eastern external borders. The Geneva Convention is virtually rendered inoperative in this hot spot as well. The comprehensive efforts of the EU to enable by all means the certification of the Ukraine as a safe third-country appears in this respect as an attempt to legalize, at least for the future, the continuous practice of illegal returns.

h., kein mensch ist illegal/Hanau

(1)    IOM: International Organisation of Migration, pioneer on the subject of global migration management, see

http://www.noborder.org/iom/index.php

(2)     The internment camp in Pawschino in Transcarpathia was set up and operated by the IOM at the end of the nineties, a militarized starvation camp that was increasingly criticized and was closed down in December 2008 also due to international public opinion and protest actions, see

http://pawschino.antira.info/

(3)     quoted from an Ukraine text in the brochure „Stop the IOM – Global Movement against Migration Control“, published by the Antirassismus-Büro Bremen in 2004.

(4)     quoted from a text by Marc Speer: „The Ukraine as a country used for transit migration“ 2009.

(5)    GDISC: the General Directors’ of Immigration Services Conference was founded in Rotterdam in 2004 as an EU Network for Adjustment Programs. “Capacity Building and Technical Support to Ukrainian authorities to Effectively Respond to Irregular Transit-Migration (ERIT) – A comprehensive and complementary approach to migration management support in Ukraine” is the full title of the program, which is moreover being realized under the authority of the Viennese ICMPD. Obviously nearly all the important migration management agencies want(ed) to be involved in the Ukraine.

(6)     Frattini: at the time still the EU Commissioner for Justice and Home Affairs and with Schäuble the initiator of the so-called Future Group, before he returned in 2008 under Berlusconi as Minister of Foreign Affairs to the more and more openly racist, Italian national politics.

(7)    ”Pilot projects are implemented in order to develop new methods and elements in border guarding …“ – see text concerning the Frontex operations in the brochure.

(8)     according to Frontex’ own data of 2008.

(9)     Chop: Ukrainian town bordering on Hungary; the intolerable conditions in the deportation prison in that town have already been described in detail in 2007, see
http://pawschino.antira.info/