Archive July 30, 2025

Greek migration minister Thanos Plevris unveiled new legislation on July 10 that would effectively forbid those seeking asylum in Greece after a dangerous journey through the Mediterranean from Africa. Plevris stated in an interview that “Greece will not tolerate the uncontrolled entry of thousands of irregular migrants from North Africa.” Human rights organizations immediately called for the new legislation in Greece to be removed. The Greek Bar Associations’ plenary made it clear that denying asylum is a violation of EU and international law.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer also outlined a “ground-breaking agreement” with France on the same day that would “send a clear message that these life-threatening journeys are pointless,” according to him. All political parties have expressed reservations about the UK-France agreement. Organizations like Doctors Without Borders referred to it as “reckless,” “ill-fated,” and “dangerous,” while the Migrants’ Rights Network made it clear that the new agreement will not stop people from entering the UK.

The reason for Greece’s and the UK’s recent migration reduction plans to fail is that migration deterrence does not work.

The European Union was confronted with a crisis a decade ago that it did not anticipate and for which it had not prepared in the summer of 2015. Taus of people scoured the European Union for safety and security as a result of the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), Syria’s brutal civil war, and instability in Afghanistan. The so-called refugee crisis in the EU was sparked by the “long summer of migration.” The European Agenda for Migration, which had been put forth in May 2015, had not yet been tested, despite the EU’s lack of a clear plan.

The story of a crisis continues to influence migration policy across Europe today. Since 2015, restrictive deterrence measures in Greece have been used to justify them, making new crackdowns unlikely to occur. Migration is a blemish in the Greek government’s economic success story. It is used to bolster far-right sentiment in the UK. In both cases, immigration policies are developed to thwart arrivals and satisfy domestic political demands.

The spread of the far right across the continent should not be taken as an isolated event from neither migration plan. Both nations have used far-right rhetoric to justify inhumane policies in both countries. The Minister of Migration has repeatedly cited a dubious narrative of an “invasion” from Africa as the justification for Greece’s new policy. The Greek border, and consequently the European border, must be strengthened in order for the country’s minister of migration to allow only “real refugees” to enjoy European protection. Small boats should not enter the country because, according to Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, they “undermine] the country’s] border security.”

Although each migration plan is the result of a number of political processes in Greece, the EU, and the UK, their writing style and justifications are similar in many ways. They use similar terms to describe the border and the migrant. The border is perceived as a threat to the border in each state, and protection is needed there. The term “illegal migrant” has gained traction among government officials because of the criminal nature of the migrant who enters each nation. In turn, people who attempt to cross the border are seen as using it as a means of defense. These strategies contribute to a divisional narrative that is “us versus them.” Migrants are reduced to their migrant identity, treated as a whole, and no longer account for their individual experiences. In this way, migrants are perceived as desirable or undesirable by the Western nation-state as being worthy or unworthy of international protection. Only those deemed to be “real refugees” qualify for protection from the international community. The border expels the “undesirables” who are turned into nothing. In the process, a crisis is manufactured and a story of fear is promoted.

Although the events at the European border later came to be known as a “refugee crisis,” they were actually a European border crisis.

The European border regime strengthened more than ever during the border crisis, and the EU’s neoliberal fantasy of a world without borders collapsed. The continent saw the emergence of new border technologies to deter and expel the “undesirables,” and normalization of pushbacks, human rights violations, and violence. Death is still permeating the borders of the European continent. Although the EU-Turkiye agreement in 2016 may have been hailed as groundbreaking, it opened the door to such “swap” policies. These agreements are ineffective. The EU-Turkiye agreement may have slowed down the flow of people across the Aegean Sea in the near future, but it did not stop them. Instead, it altered existing migration routes, created new ones, and increased the complexity and risk of migration.

Their failure is largely due to the fact that human movement cannot be controlled. It can be prevented or delayed, but it can’t be stopped, it is argued.

These policies intentionally aim to cause division because they have a racism in them. Their main goals are to separate people from Westerners and decide who should be expelled from Western society and who is deserving of a safe existence. They should not be taken out of context with the colonial and capitalist pasts of the UK and the EU. The border’s spectacle is fully staged at the same time: it creates the illusion of control over a manufactured crisis that cannot be truly controlled. In reality, the purpose of migration deterrence is to persuade people that it is necessary rather than to succeed.

Ukraine – Elina Dovzhenko, an emergency doctor, was far enough away from her car when a Russian drone struck it, causing the windshield to break and splatter pieces of shrapnel around.

Kupiansk, a bombed-out, nearly abandoned city, is less than 5 kilometers (3 miles) from the front line in Kharkiv, a northeastern Ukrainian region, and just 40 kilometers (25 miles) west of the Russian border on July 9 when it started to get dark.

However, there was still enough light for the Russian drone operator on the opposite side of the front line to recognize that Dovzhenko’s car was a white ambulance with red stripes parked close to a hospital where she and her colleagues were being attacked by shells.

Dovzhenko, 29, told Al Jazeera, “We heard the drone move, it swirled and swirled around the building, and then we heard the blast.”

She and her coworkers were shocked and angry but unsurprised. They have been regularly informed that Russian drones are attacking ambulances, rescue workers, and the people being rescued, primarily elderly people who had to leave their homes, pets, kitchen gardens, and family graves.

Every other day, they chase ambulances. They definitely targeted us, according to Dovzhenko’s ambulance partner, Denys Raievskyi, a 30-year-old paramedic.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), their profession is among the riskiest in Ukrainian wartime. Since the start of the invasion in 2022, about 200 ambulances have been damaged or destroyed annually by Russian shelling attacks.

According to the statement, “Ambulance workers and other personnel providing health transport are three times more likely to die than other healthcare service workers.”

The Kremlin’s wider plan to systematically attack ambulances is intended to devastate Ukraine’s medical facilities and prevent millions of people from getting medical care, which causes their stress as well as physical and mental health issues.

According to the WHO, 46% of Ukrainians are concerned about their mental health, and 68 percent already report a decline in their health compared to the pre-war period.

The WHO reported that since 2022, it has verified 1, 682 attacks on Ukrainian healthcare facilities and workers, which have resulted in 128 deaths and 288 injuries for health professionals and their patients.

Children in the fire’s path

The number of attacks was described as “the highest number WHO has ever recorded in any humanitarian emergency globally,” according to a previous assessment from August.

In a statement released in July 2024, the Ukraine’s health ministry said, “These attacks are a deliberate crime against humanity aimed at destroying civilians and those who fight on the front lines for [their] lives.

The statement came in response to the July 8 strike that occurred in Okhmatdyd, Kiev’s largest children’s hospital, last year, in which eight children were hurt, and hundreds were hurt.

Russia launched an X-101 missile from 5, 500 kilometers (3, 420 miles) away, flying low to avoid detection and air defense, manoeuvres in mid-flight, and strikes its target with 10-meter (33ft) accuracy.

Moscow frequently denies that it intentionally attacks healthcare, claiming that it only attacks military installations and personnel.

International relief organizations claim to be aware of the severity of the situation and will continue to support Ukraine’s healthcare system.

Giorgio Trombatore, the regional director for Eastern Europe for Project Hope, an international humanitarian organization, stated to Al Jazeera, “Unfortunately, these types of situations are not new.” However, “We are resilient, and we will continue.”

The group operates 13 ambulances in four Ukrainian cities, five of which are in Kharkiv, including the one in Kupiansk, which was struck by a drone.

In recent months, drones have also been encountered by other ambulances, but neither ambulance received any injuries.

You can’t escape that, according to Trombatore, and you must be prepared for it eventually. “Thankfully, our team didn’t report any casualties,” the team said.

His organization also provides bulletproof ambulances and helmets, which help Russia combat its strategy of repeated strikes.

In one incident, a civilian was killed and another was hurt in a Sumy village on July 14 when a Russian drone attacked the area.

A second drone detonated two meters (7 feet) away from the vehicle when the ambulance team, supported by Project HOPE, arrived.

According to Project HOPE spokesman Artem Murach, “the car saved them because it was bulletproof.”

“Resistance and Hope”

Kupiansk, a city that once had a population of 22, 000, and sits on both banks of the slow, strategically-located Oskil river.

However, the mayor of Kharkiv, which was the de facto administrative center of the region’s Moscow-occupied region, surrendered the town days after the country’s first full-scale invasion began in 2022.

Six months later, during a daring counter-offensive against Ukraine, the Russians were forced to leave.

However, Russian drones, missiles, and artillery from Russia, which have killed dozens of civilians, injured hundreds, and damaged nearly every structure, remained within its reach.

In early 2023, when Russian forces started to attack again, the majority of the residents fled Kupiansk along with police, fire brigades, and government officials.

However, only about 1,200 people, or 7% of the pre-war population, perished.

They say, “I’d better die here, because it’s home, because they’re scared to leave, and they have no relatives to host them,” according to paramedic Raievskyi.

He lives with his wife in Saltivka, the second-largest city in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, about 120 kilometers (75 miles) east of Kupiansk, in the most shell-damaged region of Kharkiv.

Despite the almost constant shelling and omnipresent drones, Raievskyi’s ambulance travels for up to 1.5 hours to treat the sick and the injured.

However, he and his colleagues cannot treat their patients on the spot because another strike is always a possibility, especially if they have been injured by a drone.

Because Russians attach kilometers-long fibre-optic cables to their loitering munitions, a portable electronic jamming system that scrambles the drones’ navigation systems no longer function in the Kharkiv region.