By Fortress Europe (01/2009)

SEBHA – “With us, in the truck, there was a four years old child, with his mother. We were crammed like animals inside the lorry, with no air and no space to move. I wondered how a child could be put in these conditions. Inside the container it was very hot. The travel took 21 hours, from 4 pm to 1 pm the following day. They didn’t give us anything to eat. People urinated one in front of the others. When the drivers stopped to eat, we put the child near to the narrow windows of the container. His name was Adam. Finally we arrived in Kufrah. When I got out I stole some bread which was hung outside the container. We had not eaten since the previous day. We were 110 persons. Including Adam four years old and his mother”. [1]

By migreurop

In member states of the European Union, as well as in neighboring countries (Libya, Morocco, Turkey, Ukraine) and beyond (Mauritania, Lebanon), the presence of an ever increasing number of zones of detention conceals policies and practices contrary to international commitments which some of these states are bound to (the United Nation Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, the International Convention on the Rights of the Child, etc.). In Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Malta, migrants are automatically placed in detention, whatever their humanitarian and/or legal situation is, including those rescued or intercepted at sea after long journeys.