Medical aid group Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has rejected funds offered by the European Union (EU) to protest the bloc’s “shameful response” to the plight of refugees and the EU-Turkey deal on asylum-seekers.
Jerome Oberreit, the secretary-general of MSF International, said on Friday that the EU-Turkey deal was entirely misguided and only helped “outsource” European obligations.
“Europe’s attempt to outsource migration control is having a domino effect with closed borders stretching all the way back to Syria. People increasingly have nowhere to turn,” Oberrit said in a statement published on the MSF’s website.
“Will the situation in Azaz — where 100,000 people are blocked between closed borders and front lines — become the rule rather than the deadly exception?” he asked.
The EU signed a refugee deal with Ankara in March in a bid to tackle Europe’s worst refugee crisis since World War II. Under the pact, Turkey would take back refugees seeking asylum in the EU in exchange for a multi-billion-euro aid package and other concessions.
“The EU-Turkey deal sets a dangerous precedent for other countries hosting refugees, sending a message that caring for people forced from their homes is optional and that they can buy their way out of providing asylum,” Oberrit further said.
The decision to reject funding from the EU states will cost MSF 41.6 million dollars. The charity group will also lose 19 million euros from EU institutions.
The MSF chief further added that the EU discussed similar deals with 16 other nations (including some of the major sources of refugees: Eritrea, Somalia, Sudan and Afghanistan) “with the single goal of denying people their right to asylum.”
“This would potentially mean locking people into war zones or places where they face persecution,” he said.
“This is jeopardizing the very concept of the refugee,” he further added in an interview quoted in a Reuters report. “It’s really important to see the real people instead of the political football that they have become.”
“We’re talking about Europe’s refugee shame,” he said.
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