25 May 2023 – BOZA FII has written letters to the ambassador of Belgium (see below), the Senegalese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Directorate of Senegalese Abroad,  to protest the agreement Belgium has recently signed with Senegal to facilitate deportations. The Directorate of Senegalese Abroad refused to receive the letter.

Letter to the ambassador of Belgium in Senegal:

Dear Mr. Ambassador

We, BOZA FII, come to you with this letter to communicate our indignation for the recent agreements that the State of Belgium has signed with the Senegalese State.
Belgium continues to seek to sign agreements with African states to facilitate the deportation of their citizens, and this reveals the racism and xenophobia of this country. We remind you that a refugee is welcomed, an undocumented migrant is regularised, a migrant is someone that is just passing through. And that is why it is important to have embassies in foreign countries. Unfortunately, we are all called upon to do what we say today: live together. Even if we are of different races, skin colours, realities, etc.

We do not know the exact content of the protocol that was signed in Brussels, but the press reports and the press release by Nicole de Moor, Secretary of State for Asylum and Migration leave us very worried and upset. We are a Senegalese NGO active in the field of migration and we are working on this case in real time. Please be assured that we are not making unfounded statements. Voluntary return, especially at this time, can never really be voluntary, because they always happen under the threat of living as undocumented migrants, being exposed to police violence, detention and deportation.

The situation of migrants’ rights in Belgium seems to us very problematic. We read with great concern that on Wednesday 19 January 2022 the Belgian state and its Federal Agency for Asylum Seekers (FEDASIL) were condemned at the Court of First Instance in Brussels for the mismanagement of asylum seekers and the right to reception, and for violating the rights of migrants and refugees. It is also worrying that the new Secretary of State for Asylum and Migration (Sammy MAHDI), who is the son of an Iraqi refugee, has assured journalists that he wants to increase the number of closed centres and to make the deportation of migrants to their countries of origin more efficient. We, BOZA FII (Benn Kàddu-Benn Yoon), condemn his barbaric and xenophobic racist words.

Mr Mahdi declared that “we will ensure, if necessary, that those who have been told at the end of the procedure that they cannot stay, are expelled from the country”. It seems clear to us, Mr. Ambassador, that the agreement signed between Belgium and Senegal is part of this strategy, which will concern first and foremost the 35 Senegalese who you keep in your closed centres. We cannot accept that migrants and refugees living in Belgium become the scapegoats for a system of criminalisation of migrants, nor that this should be done under the banner of development aid. Moreover, we are well aware of the lack of services for Senegalese returnees once in Senegal. We ourselves had to deal with the institutional absence during a recent mass deportation from Germany. Moreover, we consider that no reintegration process can cure the brutality of a return to the country that one cannot choose.

We also want to denounce the subcontracting of the reception of asylum seekers, which has been happening in Belgium since 2015. This is business done on the skin of migrants, in line with the neoliberal trend of the progressive withdrawal of the Belgian state from social matters.
The bilateral agreements that Belgium has signed with Senegal, the DRC and Chad demonstrate the complicity of our states in receiving their nationals in total silence, in favouring mass deportations to the countries of origin, in mistreating foreigners, in violating the rights of migrants, which encourages oppression and persecution. Belgium, like other European states, is the protagonist in this process, because these bilateral agreements are just meant to facilitate Europe’s racist intention to free itself from Africans.

We can no longer be at the mercy of everyone. We also remind you that Africa is part of humanity.
And so we demand :

– The cancellation of all deportations of Africans to their countries of origin by the EU.
– The cancellation of the return agreements between Belgium and Senegal.
– The cancellation of the mistreatment of black sub-Saharans living in detention centres and in centres for migrants and refugees.
– An end to all business done on the skin of asylum seekers.
– A revision of the Dublin and asylum agreements.

Hoping that our concerns will be taken into account by the Belgian State, please receive our regards.

19 May 2023 – Refugees in Libya and Solidarity with Refugees in Libya call for a demonstration in Brussels on 1 July. Join the demo and spread the call below!

Brussels is at the centre of European decision-making, with the headquarters of EU-Council, the EU-Commission and its parliament. It is also the heart of EU border politics and the site of UNHCR, IOM and Frontex offices, which are involved in migration and refugee “management”. Here, in this capital, we can find the main actors who are responsible for the endless suffering and death at the borders of Europe. 

We are calling for a mobilization in Brussels at the same week as EU leaders meet for their EU-council-summit on 29th and 30th of June, in order to confront these institutions and agencies with the voices and demands of refugees who have survived or are still experiencing their inhuman border policy. Continue reading “From Tripoli to Bruxelles: Amplify the Voices of Refugees in Libya! – Demonstration in Brussels on 1st of July 2023”

Get your tents and sleeping bags ready! Only a few more weeks before the Stop Deportation! Protest Camp starts ✊✊

Continue reading “1-6 June: Stop Deportation! Protest Camp in Berlin”

31 March 2023 – At the end of August 2022, a comrade was given an order to leave Catania, the place where he lived, after the police opened an investigation on him for spray painting the walls of the Frontex headquarters. The agency’s building in Catania is the logistical hub for Frontex operations in the Central Mediterranean. The order to leave, or expulsion order, is an administrative measure issued by the Chief of police (in Italian, “Questore”), which has an immediate effect. It was introduced following the abolition of confinement in 1956 and, in practice, it is a modern form of exile. The reason our comrade was issued an order to leave was that, according to the local police, he constitutes a “danger for public order”. In a large file, the police reported very “dangerous” situations in which our comrade was involved, such as his participation in social movements and groups supporting people on the move and freedom of movement and, crucially, for taping (!) some Abolish Frontex flyers around the city. Of course, he was never investigated for the latter “offense”, but this currently constitutes the biggest evidence to criminalise him and our ideas. Continue reading “Repression in Sicily: Call for solidarity in support to a NoBorder comrade for an action against Frontex”

27 March 2023 – [report from Reuters] European Union backing for Libyan authorities who stop and detain migrants means the bloc has “aided and abetted” rights violations against migrants, an investigator for a U.N. mission said on Monday. The EU and member states have supported and trained the Libyan coastguard, which returns migrants stopped at sea to detention centres, and have funded Libyan border management programmes via the Italian government.

Read the whole article on the Reuters website

6 March 2023 – Abolish Frontex, a grassroots network of over 130 groups and organisations aiming to abolish the EU border guard agency and to end the EU border regime, releases the following statement regarding the recent deaths of people on the move, the Italian government clampdown on rescue ships and its reaction to the shipwreck disaster. Continue reading “‘A programmed disaster: Crotone (Calabria – Italy)’ – statement about the current developments in Italy”

A Global Day of Struggle against the regime of death at our borders and to demand truth, justice and reparations for migration victims and their families.

“CommemorAction” is a double promise: We will not forget those who have lost their lives and we will fight against the borders that killed them. Continue reading “CommemorAction 6 February 2023: MIGRATION IS A RIGHT!”

9 November 2022 – One year ago, thousands of refugees had been protesting for more than 100 days in front of the UNHCR office in Tripoli: an historical act of self-organisation under the harshest conditions. Instead of listening and improving, UNHCR criticised their protest, ignored their voices, and remained silent in light of the brutal eviction and detention of those claiming their fundamental rights. Despite ongoing repressions and threats, the demands of “Refugees in Libya” prevail and their struggles continue in various different forms.

To support “Refugees in Libya” in their fight and to amplify the voices of all those who keep getting ignored, punished, and unfairly treated by an agency that is supposed to protect them, we call for two days of action in front of the UNHCR headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland on the 9th and 10th of December 2022.

See more on the website ‘UNFAIR Agency’