Human rights groups worry Europe is turning refugees into 'bargaining chips'
The European Union and Turkey agreed to a controversial agreement on Tuesday that's aimed at combating the devastating refugee crisis that has gripped the region through what's being billed as a "one-to-one" exchange.
But human rights groups are raising the alarm, warning that the program would be damaging to the hundreds of thousands of migrants and refugees who are attempting to enter Europe and result in mass deportations.
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Under the newly proposed plan, all migrants and refugees arriving on boats in Greece en route from Turkey would be turned back. In return, one Syrian in Turkey would be formally resettled in an EU country for every Syrian sent away.
Turkey in turn agreed that it would accept migrants who are picked up in the Aegean Sea, in the region that separates the country from the nearby Greek islands, as well as those who have arrived in Greece but have not yet applied for asylum there.
The two sides believe the measures could cut down on human smugglers and will more evenly distribute the burden of new arrivals, taking pressure off countries on the frontline of the crisis. But aid workers foresee a dangerous precedent.
“Refugees should not be used as bargaining chips,” said Bill Frelick, refugee rights director at Human Rights Watch, in a statement emailed to Mashable. “The integrity of the EU’s asylum system, indeed the integrity of European values, is at stake.”
Aid group Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), which has been working with migrants and refugees in Europe for months voiced similar concerns in an emailed statement that called the proposal inhumane.
"For each refugee that will risk their life at sea and will be summarily sent back to Turkey, another one may have the chance to reach Europe from Turkey under a proposed resettlement scheme," said Aurelie Ponthieu, MSF humanitarian affairs adviser on displacement. "This crude calculation reduces people to mere numbers, denying them humane treatment and discarding their right to seek protection."
"These people are not numbers but women, children and families, 88% of whom are fleeing refugee-producing countries," Ponthieu said. "They should be treated humanely and with full respect for their rights and dignity."
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An average of 2,500 people have made the crossing every day since a previous EU-Turkey agreement was struck in November 2015. So far this year, more than 141,000 people have arrived in Greece after crossing from Turkey.
The EU is expected to double its aid package, to $6.63 billion, for health care, education, and other basic services for more than two million Syrian refugees already in Turkey, and ramp up political concessions to Turkey, such as easing visa restrictions for Turkish nationals and reviving talks on Turkish accession to the EU, in exchange for stepped-up efforts to curb migration and refugee flows to Europe.
But the deal is still not set in stone. The aim is for deal at the next EU summit in Brussels starting March 17.
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Additional information from the Associated Press.
Megan Specia was Mashable's Assistant Real-Time News Editor and joined the team in September 2014. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism & Mass Communications from the University of New Hampshire after growing up in the Jersey 'burbs. She made her way to New York via a four year stopover in Dublin. Megan previously worked as a journalist and editor at Storyful in both Dublin and New York. Before all of that, though, her claim to fame was as head cake arranger and purveyor of all things sweet at Queen of Tarts cafe in Dublin, where she developed a serious addiction to macarons.
