Laura Picchi

Rights, No Deaths!

Europe’s borders kill every day. Thousands of forced migrants die trying to reach Europe or trying to cross its internal borders.

More than 28,000 people have died since 2014. Forty-nine thousand since 1993. They come from Africa, Asia and the Middle East and die especially in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic; and also in the Balkans, in the Alps, in the English Channel, in the Bidasoa River at the foot of the Pyrenees and in other border areas.

At the same time, the people who manage to cross these borders, work and contribute to the development of European societies, most of them live for long years without rights, without papers. Not having the papers they need deprives them of access to the most fundamental rights, such as the right to health or justice.

Deaths and disappearances, and all these situations go unnoticed by the vast majority of the population, just as the EU’s responsibility for them and the right to migrate freely and safely goes unnoticed. However, it is clear that European states do not recognize everyone’s right to move freely and safely, nor to enjoy their fundamental rights.

The recent drama of the Ukrainian exile, provoked by the war, comes to join these exoduses of people who move for forced reasons throughout the world.

We celebrate the extraordinary welcoming that the European Union has given in this case to the millions of Ukrainian people fleeing the war, regularising their situation immediately, and we believe that it is time for the European Union to apply the same measures for all migrants and refugees regardless of their origin.

Due to this situation, we propose a protest action in Brussels between different European organisations that have been defending the rights of people who migrate forcibly.

We want this initiative to consolidate a movement that permanently denounces the responsibility of European governments in these deaths, that proposes alternatives and awakens Europe’s conscience.

We will march on September the 30th and October 1st 2022 to the political heart of Europe, in Brussels. We propose that people, collectives and organisations from Europe and also from migrants’ countries of origin join us.

The slogan is Rights. No deaths! because in addition to deaths, we denounce the suffering of people without papers . Living means living with rights.

Our objectives are:

• Denounce the European Union as responsible for the migration policies that cause these deaths.
• Demand that the European institutions – Commission, Council and Parliament – take concrete measures to guarantee the human rights of migrants, including the right to move freely and safely. And that the measures incorporate an intersectional gender and rights perspective. 
• Denounce the root reasons of forced migration. 
• Raise awareness of this situation among the European population.
• To achieve the regularisation of all persons who have arrived and are living in the European Union. 
• Consolidate the international reporting and solidarity network with migrants and refugees.