• Almost 100 NGOs have published a joint statement in which they have urged the EU and its member states to safeguard the right to territorial asylum in Europe.
• The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk has warned UN member states about the scale of abuse committed against migrants and refugees in Libya.
• The UN is following up on reports of a mass grave in the desert along the Libya-Tunisia border
• Türkiye has closed its border with Syria following a number of violent incidents in both countries at the end of June.
• The EC has signed a €1 billion macro-financial assistance agreement with Egypt.

On 9 July, almost 100 NGOs published a joint statement in which they urged the EU and its member states (MS) to safeguard the right to territorial asylum in Europe. The signatories, which include ECRE and several ECRE member organisations, decry the EU and EU MS’ recent attempts to “evade their asylum responsibilities by outsourcing asylum processing and refugee protection” which they say “risk undermining the international protection system”. In a press release that accompanied the publication of the joint statement, ECRE member organisation Amnesty International European Institutions Office, highlighted the risks of massive human rights violations that could result from the EU copying migration outsourcing schemes such as those implemented in Australia and, until recently, foreseen in the United Kingdom. “Wherever these schemes have been attempted, they have been rife with rights violations, placing countless people in prolonged arbitrary detention and an unbearable legal limbo, denying them crucial legal safeguards and guarantees, while costing taxpayers inordinate sums,” it wrote. The organisation’s EU advocate on migration and asylum, Olivia Sundberg Diez, also dismissed policy-makers’ attempts to present outsourcing as “innovative”. “Attempts by states to outsource their asylum responsibilities to other countries are not new – but have long been criticized, condemned, and rejected for good reason,” she said. “They’re described as innovative, but in fact, they’ve been, you know, bandied around and tossed around for years,” she said separately. Tineke Strik MEP added her support to the NGOs’ appeal to the EU and EU MS. “I fully subscribe to this important statement. [The external processing of asylum applications] undermines the right to asylum and is incompatible with the EU’s core values,” she X posted.

The NGO statement was published less than two weeks after European Commission (EC) President Ursula von der Leyen referred to “innovative strategies” in asylum and migration policy in a letter to EU leaders. In the letter, which she sent to EU heads of state and government in advance of European Council meeting on 27 June, von der Leyen wrote that “Many member states are looking at innovative strategies to prevent irregular migration by tackling asylum applications further from the EU external border”. Although, she did not explicitly refer to the letter on “new solutions to address irregular migration to Europe” that 15 EU MS sent to Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson on 15 May, von der Leyen has been accused of “rehashing ideas” that were included in it. Commenting on von der Leyen’s letter, Marco Bresolin from La Stampa commented simply: “Orban and Meloni will be pleased”. For his part, the United Nations Refugee Agency’s (UNHCR) Representative for Europe, Jean-Nicolas Beuze told EUobserver: “We need to be a bit more upstream looking, preventing people to take risks”. He explained that efforts to increase people’s access to public services and other opportunities could have the positive outcome that “they are not forced to embark on the perilous trip on the Mediterranean Sea”.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk has warned UN member states about the scale of abuse committed against migrants and refugees in Libya. Addressing the UN Human Rights Council on 9 July, Türk said: “Trafficking, torture, forced labour, extortion, starvation in intolerable conditions of detention” are “perpetrated at scale…with impunity” and that “mass expulsions, the sale of human beings, including children” are widespread. He also urged a review of the EU’s co-operation with Libyan authorities on migration and highlighted various issues, including the high number of migrants and refugees who die in the Sahara Desert, widespread cases of arbitrary detention and extrajudicial killing, and denial of access to detention facilities and other locations across the country for UN investigators. He called for a “‘rights-based, people-centred’ transitional justice and reconciliation process, a sustainable political settlement, the restoration of the rule of law – including accountability for human rights violations – and unified, legitimate institutions” as a means of remedying the situation.

High Commissioner Turk also used his address to the Human Rights Council to announce that his office was following up on reports of a mass grave in the desert along the Libya-Tunisia border. “I urge the authorities to respond swiftly to our inquiries, and to investigate these crimes fully,” he said, adding: “The loved ones of those who died have every right to know the truth”. The discovery of the mass grave comes a few months after the bodies of 65 migrants were found at another site in southwest Libya in March.

On 2 July, Türkiye closed its border with Syria following a number of violent incidents in both countries at the end of June. In Türkiye, 474 people were detained for their involvement in attacks on Syrian-owned properties and vehicles in the central city of Kayseri, the provinces of Hatay, Gaziantep, Konya, Bursa and a district of Istanbul, following allegations of a sexual assault by a Syrian man on a child.  According to France24, a video of the riot in Kayseri which was posted on social media showed a Turkish man shouting “We don’t want any more Syrians! We don’t want any more foreigners!”. Following the outbreak of violence in Türkiye, “hundreds” of Syrians took to the streets in several towns in the northwest of the country and there were exchanges of fire with Turkish forces stationed there. As a result, “at least four people” were killed in the city of Afrin close to the Syria-Türkiye border. Türkiye responded to the unrest by closing a number of border crossings, including the Bab al-Hawa and Bab al-Salam crossings “until further notice”. In addition, Turkish Minister of the Interior Ali Yerlikaya announced that 63 investigations into nefarious bot activity related to the anti-Syrian protests had been launched. “After the events that took place in Kayseri on the evening of June 30, 343,000 posts were shared from approximately 79,000 accounts on the social media platform X; 37% of shared accounts are BOTs: It was determined that 68% of the posts were provocative and negative,” he claimed in an X post.

On 29 June, the EC signed a €1 billion macro-financial assistance agreement with Egypt. The agreement, which will allow for the transfer of the first tranche of the €7.4 billion package agreed in March, was signed at the EU-Egypt Investment conference in Cairo. Commissioner for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Olivér Várhelyi stated that the investment that would result from the agreement could lead to “the golden age of EU-Egypt relationship”. Emily Wigens from the ONE Campaign was less optimistic, describing the EU-Egypt agreement as an “unfortunate continuation” of a worrying trend. “These deals, along with the recent revision of the EU’s 7-year budget, mark a turning point for ‘Global Europe’,” she told African Arguments, adding: “Leaving the bloc’s international partners to foot the bill for internal priorities like migration is short-sighted and risks damaging the EU’s credibility and relevance in an increasingly competitive world”.

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