Consider This from NPR - Asylum-Seekers Are Being Unlawfully Shut Out During The Pandemic

Episode Date: February 15, 2021

The United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, says more than 60 countries around the world are using COVID-19 as an excuse to skirt international law by closing borders and ports to asylum-seekers. That has contributed to an increase in delayed rescues and unlawful expulsions of refugees to dangerous places. NPR's Joanna Kakissis tells the story of one teenage survivor. And NPR's Ruth Sherlock reports on a doomed journey of Lebanese refugees attempting to cross the Mediterranean sea — where over 1,000 migrants died in 2020. In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment that will help you make sense of what's going on in your community.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Last September, 22-year-old Ibrahim Lachine left his home in Lebanon and boarded a small boat for Cyprus, where he and other migrants hope to find better jobs and a whole new life. Lachine told NPR's Ruth Sherlock that he had sold his mother's couches to pay for this boat trip, and that before they boarded, the smugglers who arranged the trip took all of the migrants' possessions, including their phones and even baby formula. Lachine says they were promised it would only be a seven-hour journey. But then two days later, they were stranded at sea, without fuel and without food. A two-year-old died in his mother's arms. That's when another passenger decided to swim. He said he was going to find help. He asked us all for forgiveness if he didn't succeed.

That was the last they saw of him. Others swam for help too. And then seven days into this journey, after three more passengers had died, Lachine decided it was his turn. I decided to go because there wasn't anyone left but me on the boat who knew how to swim. Lachine swam through the night and was saved by a rescue boat that happened to be passing by. Eight days after they left shore, six of his fellow passengers were now dead. The International Organization for Migration estimates that last year, more than 1,000 people died trying to make similar crossings in the Mediterranean Sea.

Consider this. The pandemic has shut down borders across the world, which has made the already perilous plight of migrants and refugees even more difficult. From NPR, I'm Elsa Chang. It's Monday, February 15th. This message comes from NPR sponsor Searchlight Pictures with Nomadland, starring Frances McDormand and directed by Chloe Zhao. Now nominated for four Golden Globe Awards, including Best Picture, in theaters across the U.S. and streaming on Hulu February 19th. Support for this podcast and the following message come from TrackPhone Wireless, giving you control over your wireless plan. There's no contract and unlimited talk and text smartphone plans start at

just $20 a month, all in America's largest and most dependable networks. Learn more at trackphone.com. Decades before the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s, Marcus Garvey attracted millions of followers with a message of Black self-sufficiency and Black nationalism in Africa. For our Black History Month special series, The Seismic Influence and Complicated Legacy of Marcus Garvey. Listen now to the ThruLine podcast from NPR. It's Consider This from NPR. The Lebanese migrants we heard about earlier were stuck at sea with no way to call for help.

But even many asylum seekers who no way to call for help. But even many asylum seekers who are able to call for help haven't been getting the protection they're entitled to. The United Nations Refugee Agency says more than 60 countries are using COVID-19 as an excuse to skirt international law. They're closing borders and ports to asylum seekers, which has led to delayed rescues at sea and refugees being sent back to dangerous countries. Joanna Kakisis has been reporting on what this looks like through the eyes of one teenage survivor. And just a warning, this story does contain a description of sexual assault. Siddal is 15 years old. Since she's a minor whose life is often in danger, we are not using her full name. She's been on her own since she was 11, and she has been searching

for refuge since she was eight. That's when she and her dad fled their native Eritrea, an East African country run by one of the world's most repressive governments. I remember my father said the government was chasing him, that he had written something they didn't like, and they wanted to put him in jail. She says they lived in Sudan for three years, but her father could not find enough work. So they moved again, this time to Libya. Sadal remembers holding her dad's hand as smugglers led them and other migrants across a big desert. We walked for 10 days. I remember there was very little water and food.

My father had diabetes. He collapsed. He died. The smugglers left her dad's body on the side of the road. They told Sadal, you belong to us. They later handed her over to trafficking gangs, who sold her to Libyan men, who repeatedly raped her. They would bring four or five men to abuse me. They also beat me. This was my life. Sadal escaped at the end of 2019 with the help of a local Libyan doctor.

The doctor helped her get to Libya's capital, Tripoli. I found work cleaning a pharmacy for a few hours a week. I lived in a building owned by some kind Libyan people who rented rooms to refugees. To cheer themselves up, Sadal and her roommates, also Eritrean girls, watched video clips of Charlie Chaplin on the mobile phone they shared. He's so goofy, she says. It was nice to laugh. This fragile existence ended when the pandemic hit last spring.

Sada lost her cleaning job. She couldn't afford food. And worst of all, the trafficking gangs had begun terrorizing her neighborhood. The worst years of my life were with these gangs. They do whatever they want with you. I was very desperate, and I tried to find a way out. Sadal's friends paid a smuggler to take her on an inflatable raft across the Mediterranean to Europe. On April 9th, she squeezed onto the raft with more than 60 other migrants.

She had to cross at least 100 miles of sea to reach the closest European nations, Italy and Malta. There's democracy in Europe. Maybe I can work or even go to school. Maybe I can learn to help other girls likely who have been abused. Sadal huddled with a few women and two babies in the middle of the raft. Young men bundled in thick jackets sat along the edges, shielding the women and babies from the sea's cold waves. The scene is captured on a video taken by another young Eritrean on board, Abdu Mahmoud. Abdu says the passengers' optimism cracked when the RAF engine stopped two days into the journey. He says everyone panicked.

We realized we couldn't control the boat anymore. We were left to the mercy of the waves and the wind. They called Italy's Coast Guard, Malta's Coast Guard. No one answered. Finally, someone called Alarm Phone, a human rights group that runs a hotline for migrants stuck at sea. So in case of distress in the Mediterranean, call 0033. Alarm Phone volunteers were already on the phone with other desperate migrants in the Mediterranean.

There were four boats and they were all neglected and abandoned. That's Mahri Stierl, a spokesman for Alarm Phone. He says the boats were in a search and rescue zone that's Malta's responsibility. So his colleagues tried in vain to call Malta's armed forces. And I mean, it's incredible, right? It's an emergency hotline and they don't pick it up. When the Maltese finally did answer, they said Malta's ports were closed due to COVID-19. And this also applied to people in distress at sea that nobody could enter Maltese territory and so on. It was an excuse. Back on the raft, the passengers were so thirsty, some were drinking seawater. Abdu remembers two teenage boys who seemed to be hallucinating.

They jumped into the sea and yelled, I'm going home. They were trying to swim towards something that wasn't there. The boys drowned. The raft started taking in water. Sadal grabbed an empty jerry can and held it close. I told myself, if we sink, then I will hold this and float as long as I can and hope that God will be with me. Twelve of Sadal's fellow passengers would die on this journey. The sea route between North Africa and Europe is the deadliest in the world for migrants, according to Safa Miskeli of the International Organization for Migration.

And, she notes, Under international law and maritime conventions, states are under the obligation to prioritize saving lives at any cost. But it wasn't the Maltese Navy that showed up to aid Sadal's raft, but a couple of fishing boats. And they took the survivors not to Malta to claim asylum, but back to Libya, back to the place Sadal had fled. I did not want to get off that boat. I tried to hide so the crew wouldn't find me, but they did, and they dragged me out. It turned out that Malta had hired the fishing boats to push the migrants back to Libya, which is illegal under international law.

In a televised statement, Prime Minister Robert Abella admitted Malta pushed the migrants to Libya, although he called it a rescue. Maltese authorities did not respond to NPR's requests for further comment. Malta, Greece and Italy all argue that they cannot take in any more migrants and that the European Union does not help with resettling. Gillian Triggs of the UN's Refugee Agency says that's no excuse. These are fundamental breaches of refugee law and very worrying. My concern is that as COVID subsides, and it must eventually, many of these countries will leave these restrictive border practices in place. The UN's Refugee Agency is moving the most vulnerable asylum seekers out of Libya.

Fifteen-year-old Sadal is now in a UN camp in Rwanda, waiting for a third country to take her in. And she's got a lawyer, Paul Bourgelivier, who's suing the Maltese government on behalf of Sadal and the other asylum seekers on her raft, most of whom are still trapped in Libya. The aim is to defend the migrants, but at the end of the day, defend also the right to seek asylum and the right to life. The pandemic, he says, must not be an excuse to eliminate these rights forever.

Reporter Joanna Kakissis. You're listening to Consider This from NPR. I'm Elsa Chang.