Aid cuts are driving migrants to Europe, warns UN refugee chief
Filippo Grandi calls on EU countries to support existing asylum facilities in Africa rather than create new schemes
The UN’s top refugee official said “catastrophic” budget cuts to his agency were already driving more migration to Europe, as he urged EU capitals to fund existing asylum facilities in Africa rather than create new systems.
Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, told the Financial Times that there was mounting evidence of Sudanese moving north towards Europe rather than staying in Sudan or neighbouring Chad, where many had found support previously.
“The budget cuts that are imposed on us by donors are catastrophic also from the point of view of how you manage these flows,” Grandi said, adding that ignoring the developments in African countries was “a big strategic mistake”.
“There is no doubt in my mind that people are already moving from Chad to Libya — Sudanese refugees,” Grandi said, referring to one of the migrant routes towards Europe. “Give more assistance to states where people are ready to stay before going back home. You solve a lot of your problems by doing that.”
The UNHCR’s budget has been drastically reduced after US President Donald Trump cut his country’s funding from $2bn to about $390mn this year. But European countries such as France, Italy and Germany have also cut support, compounding a crisis. The UN agency has let go of a third of its staff and put programmes worth $1.4bn on hold.
Faced with a backlog of asylum cases and rising anti-immigration sentiment, many EU countries have sought to externalise parts of their asylum systems, including by screening applicants in countries outside the bloc.
Such schemes, driven by countries with hardline stances such as Denmark and Italy, have been controversial, and previous efforts by the UK to establish asylum facilities in Rwanda failed over human rights concerns.
Grandi said it would be a “much better investment” to spend money in countries where there were large refugee populations already that were ready to stay, such as Chad, Iran or Kenya.
The number of people travelling to Europe via Libya has recently increased, and EU countries are keen to give the Libyan authorities more funding to prevent people from crossing the Mediterranean. But efforts to co-operate with the Libyan authorities and the rival armed groups that control part of the territory have been fraught.
The EU has sealed several agreements with African countries to halt immigration and is now working on further “solutions” involving non-EU countries. Proposals include sending rejected asylum seekers to so-called “return hubs” in countries that are not their home, or screening asylum seekers who have been rescued in the Mediterranean in northern African countries rather than in Europe.
Grandi said his agency was willing to participate in such schemes if proper safeguards were in place, including that European countries maintained their responsibility for the people in question. This was not the case with the UK’s Rwanda scheme.
“If it is dumping the responsibilities of people that are seeking asylum in Europe entirely on the country selected, then I think it would be a bit more problematic,” he said.
“If it is helping out with a system that offers sufficient guarantees and respect of international law, maybe yes.”
But, he added: “Let’s be realistic. You have to find a country that is willing to do it. I’m not very optimistic that you have countries queueing up.”
The UNHCR would also have difficulty working in some of the countries Europe is eyeing for closer co-operation on migration. Libya, for instance, was “not a country where we could have such an arrangement”, said Grandi.
He also said he was concerned about the “situation in Tunisia”, another country with which the EU has clinched a migration deal and which some people want to co-operate more closely with despite the government’s crackdown on migrants.
UNHCR was not allowed to screen people for asylum in Tunisia any more after a government decision, Grandi said. “We know that there’s been pushbacks [of migrants] to Libya, to Algeria, and that there is a difficult environment for refugees and migrants,” he added.
Grandi urged European governments to co-ordinate with the agency in order to make sure that external asylum arrangements could function under international law. “Consult with us when you are elaborating. There are windows of opportunity to do some of these innovative things,” he said.