More walls against migrants:
12 European countries want to build them
A group of EU countries has asked Brussels to strengthen drastic measures against immigration. Austria, Cyprus, Denmark, Greece, Lithuania, Poland, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia and the Slovak Republic have addressed an indecent request to the European Commission and the EU Council presidency: “We demand new instruments to protect the external borders of the EU against migratory flows, including European funding of fences and walls”.
Phto: Redattore Sociale
WHAT WAS BRUSSELS' RESPONSE?
DO, BUT NOT WITH EUROPEAN FUNDS
Ylva Johansson, European Commissioner for Home Affairs (Photo: Twitter)
EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson said: “We need to strengthen the protection of our external borders, some Member States have built fences and protection structures, they have the right to do so and I can understand that. But now, if EU funds have to be used to do this, I have to say no”. (Source: Repubblica 8 October 2021).
ALTHOUGH ATTENTION HAS SO FAR BEEN FOCUSED ON THE PANDEMIC,
THE ISSUE OF MIGRATION REMAINS ONE OF THE FACTORS OF DISUNITY...
"A WANT FOR WALLS
(in the Europe born to knock them down) IS SPREADING".
AN OVERVIEW OF THE CURRENT WALLS AS AN EXPRESSION OF EUROPEAN HUMANITARIAN DRIFT
Among the walls against illegal immigration, the best known is the one separating the United States from Mexico. But when the migration crisis broke out in Europe, it was the Schengen area, the world’s most imposing virtual wall, that wanted to erect barriers within its territory; and 1,000 kilometres of walls were created. In the small enclave of Ceuta and Melilla, in Morocco, as in Hungary, there are walls of barbed wire.
Photo: Il Sole 24 ore
The wall built in 2015 by Viktor Orbán on the Hungarian-Serbian border stretches 175 kilometres and has a four-metre high barbed wire fence: designed to “preserve Christian roots”, it inspired Slovenia, Austria, and Macedonia, which have done the same on their borders. Bulgaria has also erected almost 176 kilometres of barbed wire fencing along its border with Turkey: the infamous Balkan route.
Photo: Avvenire.it
Then they moved further north. First Estonia with its 110 kilometres of hi-tech barrier along the border with the Russian Federation, then the 90 kilometres of barbed wire under construction on the Latvian borders and the ‘European Wall’ wanted by Ukraine, and finally Lithuania, with a two-metre high barrier running along 50 of the 130 kilometres of border with the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad.
Photo: CEI news
Greece has also completed the construction of a 40km barrier on its border with Turkey, with a new surveillance system: Greek security forces have been put on alert to prevent a repeat of the 2015 migration crisis when nearly a million people, mainly from the Middle East, crossed the border into Turkey. So much so that in March 2020, Greek agents even shot migrants crossing the border with Turkey: a shocking act on a normally pacified border, where it is not customary to shoot.
Photo: La Stampa
And that is not enough. Because Turkey has almost completed the construction of a wall along the border with Iran: a wall that, like the one along the Syrian and Iraqi borders, was built mainly to prevent the arrival of illegal migrants and whose construction – several modules, for a structure 295 kilometres long, equipped with infrared sensors – has been accelerated in recent weeks on the Iranian side, the only part not completed, after the return to power of the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Foto: Cantiere.org
LET US BUILD A WALL AGAINST INHUMANITY
THE OPPOSITE OF LOVE IS INDIFFERENCE!
