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Migrants sit aboard a wooden boat during a rescue
operation, in partnership with Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières,
MSF), off the coast of Sicily in the Mediterranean sea, in May 2015 ©Jason
Florio (Migrant Offshore Aid Station/AFP)
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Despite growing
pressure to address the tragedy of African migrants drowning in the
Mediterranean, the African Union is unlikely to offer any home-grown solutions
to the crisis, say analysts.
Refugees will be discussed in a closed session at the
first day of the African Union summit on Sunday, in anticipation of a meeting
with the European Union in the latter half of this year.
But African leaders, many of whom routinely flout
human rights, are accused of lacking the will to criticize each other on
refugee and immigration policies for fear of attracting criticism themselves.
The stalemate thwarts efforts to combat the
continent's refugee crises.
AFP report continues:
"I am not sure to what extent the leaders can
tell each other this type of uncomfortable truth," said Tjiurimo Hengari,
a research fellow at the South African Institute of International Affairs
(SAIIA).
"The solutions are mostly domestic, it's about
better governance. They need to tell each other: we need to promote inclusive
growth, we need to promote good governance."
Last weekend alone, 6,000 people, most of them
sub-Saharan Africans, were pulled to safety from fishing boats and rubber
dinghies off Libya.
Nearly 1,800, mainly African and Middle Eastern
refugees, have drowned in the Mediterranean this year.
The summit's host, South Africa's President Jacob
Zuma, is unlikely to take the lead on any pan-continental effort to tackle the
refugee crisis, as he faces criticism over deadly xenophobic violence in his
country earlier this year.
Nigeria and Zimbabwe were among those who lashed out
at South Africa for not protecting their citizens after a series of
anti-migrant attacks in January and April.
In the aftermath of the unrest, a defiant Zuma refused
to accept blame.
"As much as we can have a problem alleged to be
xenophobic, our brother countries contributed to this," he said. "Why
are the citizens not in their countries?"
- Closed doors
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Led by anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela, South
Africa used to be seen as a home for Africa's refugees.
The country ended apartheid and in 1994 embraced its
new democracy as a racially united "rainbow nation", before signing
the most progressive legislation on refugee protection in the world.
It was a logical reaction: many of the leaders of the
ruling ANC party had at some point lived in exile in Africa.
However, from 2000 the attitude towards migrants
coming from across the continent began to change.
Restrictions were put on the length of time refugees
could stay.
The Home Affairs ministry started to see fights in the
queues outside its offices as refugees were turned away by hostile -- and
sometimes corrupt -- officers.
"There were far more people coming to South
Africa than they expected, with conflicts happening on the continent and South
Africa being an economic hub," said David Cote of the Lawyers for Human
Rights group.
By 2012, the ANC had adopted a much harsher stance on
refugees.
This year Zuma mobilized the army in an operation to
arrest 1,600 undocumented immigrants in May, echoing his Congolese counterpart
Denis Sassou Nguesso who has also conducted similar operations since last year.
"The tragedy of what happened in January and
April in South Africa is it sends the signal that migrants no matter where you
go, if you go north, if you go south, you are not very welcome," said Jens
Pedersen, humanitarian adviser for Doctors Without Borders.
Marc Gbaffou, chairperson of the African Diaspora Forum,
agrees.
In April, Gbaffou wrote to the African Union asking to
add "the protection of immigrants in host countries" on its agenda,
as well as "freedom to settle and conduct business in any African country
of choice".
"The
impression we have is that they are trying to downgrade the importance of this
subject," Gbaffou said.
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