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EU EXPANDS: Refugees Pushed to New Frontiers

Pavol Stracansky

BRATISLAVA, May 14 2004 (IPS) - Slovakia’s asylum system could be pushed to collapse and leave refugees at the mercy of people smugglers following the country’s entry into the EU, UN officials in Slovakia warn.

Slovakia’s asylum system could be pushed to collapse and leave refugees at the mercy of people smugglers following the country’s entry into the EU, UN officials in Slovakia warn.

Slovakia, one of ten countries which joined the European Union (EU) May 1, has been identified as a transit point on one of the major refugee and people smuggling routes from Asia to western Europe.

Last year a record 10,300 refugees from places like Russia, Chechnya, India and Afghanistan arrived in Slovakia. They placed a massive burden on the country’s six refugee camps that together have a capacity of no more than 2,000.

Officials at the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in Bratislava say more than 9,000 of these walked out and ‘disappeared’ into the west before their asylum applications could be processed. They are believed to have been taken to places like Germany and Britain by people smugglers.

The officials say that under a new programme to identify asylum seekers who leave the country, the already overburdened asylum system will collapse.

"It could be a paradise for people smugglers," Zolo Mikes, spokesman for the UNHCR in Bratislava told IPS. "People who have escaped into the west will be sent back here and they will end up being in overburdened camps, and would be on the streets again ready to be picked up by people smugglers. The asylum system could be close to collapse. There will not be room to accommodate them."

As of May 1 Slovakia began using Eurodac – a fingerprint database of refugees who have claimed asylum in EU states. Under the Dublin II convention to which Slovakia is now party, any refugee who has applied for asylum in one EU country and is then found applying again in another can be sent back to the country where he or she first applied.

The UNHCR believes that people who have left Slovakia to apply for asylum elsewhere will be more easily identified with Eurodac and sent back to Slovakia, where authorities will not be able to cope with them on top of the refugees already in Slovakia.

The overcrowding would encourage refugees at open camps to come and go as they please and attempt to leave again. They could simply walk into local towns where people smugglers are known to operate.

The UNHCR is asking for more camps to be built in Slovakia, and increased administration capacities for dealing with asylum requests.

Ivan Dracka, director of the Gabcikovo refugee camp in the south-west of the country near the Hungarian and Austrian border says he is already concerned about the capacity at his camp. The camp has room for 800 refugees.

"In the past it was always difficult to get any definitive proof a person had applied for asylum somewhere else first," he told IPS. "But with Eurodac that will change."

There will now be growing interest in Slovakia because refugees will know it is part of the EU, he says. "They will also think that because it is part of the EU they can get across borders freely, even though that is wrong because Slovakia will not join the Schengen group of countries with free border movement for at least three or for years."

The capacity at the camps must be increased, he says. "The capacity here at least is not enough for the future. It is down to the state bodies to deal with this."

The Slovak Migration Office, the government body responsible for matters relating to refugees says the UNHCR is exaggerating.

"Slovakia is constantly improving its facilities for taking in refugees, as well as our administration capacities," Bernard Priecel, head of the Slovak Migration Office told IPS. "What the UNHCR is not saying is that not everyone will be sent back to Slovakia but also to countries from where they arrived in Slovakia originally."

Priecel says the UNHCR has used the term ‘disappearing’ for refugees going west. "This is an exaggeration," he says. "People leave Slovakia voluntarily for destination countries while Slovakia is a transit country."