AN internationally respected charity is to refuse EU funds because of the community’s “shameful” response to the refugee crisis.

The decision could cost Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) an annual £50 million based on the amount it received from EU institutions, member states and Norway last year.

The charity said yesterday it could no longer accept funds from the EU because of its “damaging deterrence policies” and increasing attempts to “push people and their suffering away from European shores”.

MSF is particularly incensed at the EU-Turkey deportation agreement which has left thousands of refugees trapped in squalid camps on the Greek islands.

The charity is also furious at the EU’s plan to reward African dictators who prevent people fleeing their countries.

“For months MSF has spoken out about a shameful European response focused on deterrence rather than providing people with the assistance and protection they need,” said Jérôme Oberreit, MSF international secretary general. “The EU-Turkey deal goes one step further and has placed the very concept of ‘refugee’ and the protection it offers in danger.

“Deterrence policies sold to the public as humanitarian solutions have only exacerbated the suffering of people in need. There is nothing remotely humanitarian about these policies. It cannot become the norm and must be challenged.

“MSF will not receive funding from institutions and governments whose policies do so much harm. We are calling on European governments to shift priorities: rather than maximising the number of people they can push back, they must maximise the number they welcome and protect.”

WHY IS THERE SO MUCH ANGER?

THE politically neutral medical aid charity operates in crisis zones across the world including the Mediterranean where it has treated an estimated 200,000 people in the last 18 months.

Since the EU-Turkey deal was agreed in March more than 8,000 people, including hundreds of unaccompanied minors, have been stranded in overcrowded Greek camps.

“They fear a forced return to Turkey yet are deprived of essential legal aid, their one defence against collective expulsion,” said the charity. “The majority of these families, whom Europe has legislated out of sight, have fled conflict in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Further, the proposal to fund repressive regimes like Sudan and Eritrea if they prevent refugees leaving sets a “dangerous precedent”, according to the MSF.

Indeed last month the Kenyan government cited European migration policy to justify their decision to close the world’s largest refugee camp, Dadaab, sending its residents back to Somalia.

Other charities, human rights campaigners and some left-wing MEPs are also appalled at the proposal to pay dictatorships.

“These ‘country packages’ would make us complicit with dictatorships and deny basic fundamental rights to people fleeing wars, famine and extreme poverty … The Commission should be ashamed of this proposal,” said Italian MEP Barbara Spinelli.


WHAT ARE THE EFFECTS?

LIKEWISE the EU-Turkey deal, says MSF, does nothing to encourage countries surrounding Syria, already hosting millions of refugees, to open their borders to those in need.

“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,” said Oberreit. “Will the situation in Azaz [Syria] where 100,000 people are blocked between closed borders and front lines become the rule, rather than the deadly exception?”

The EU-Turkey deal’s financial package includes £800m in humanitarian aid which the charity says has been negotiated as a reward for border control promises, rather than being based solely on needs.

“MSF will not receive funding from institutions and governments whose policies do so much harm,” said Oberreit. “We are calling on European governments to shift priorities – rather than maximizing the number of people they can push back, they must maximize the number they welcome and protect.”

IS THE DEAL WORKING?

FOUNDED in Paris in 1971, MSF now has thousands of health professionals, logistical and administrative staff working on programmes in about 69 countries worldwide.

Operating independently it does not take sides in conflicts but provides care on the basis of need. Over 90 per cent of MSF’s work is privately funded and it was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999.

The charity recently pulled out of the UN-run world humanitarian summit on the grounds that it was a “fig leaf of good intentions” that would achieve very little. MSF protests that not enough is being done by governments to protect medics, hospitals and patients with many of their health facilities in conflict zones subject to attacks.

Meanwhile, the EU insists the deal with Turkey is working.

“We have seen a sharp reduction of the illegal migration flows,” European Council President Donald Tusk said.

In return for £4.7 billion of EU funds, Turkey has agreed to accept refugees who have arrived in Greece since March 20 if they do not ask for asylum or if their application is rejected. For each Syrian refugee returned to Turkey, the EU has agreed to take another Syrian who has made a “legitimate” claim.

Charities, including MSF, object on the grounds that Turkey, which houses 2.7 million Syrian refugees, is not safe – until the March deal the EU agreed. Turkey has breached international law by sending refugees back to Syria and those who are allowed to stay have no access to legal help.

Meanwhile, the EU has failed to send enough asylum officials to process the claims of refugees in Greece and there are reports many have been sent back to Turkey without papers, money or their possessions.

It was also recently reported that babies in the Greek camps, whose asylum-seeking mothers are unable to breastfeed because of stress, are not being provided with enough milk to stop them going hungry.