The European Union just released the results of Mos Maiorum, a huge raid operation carried out by 27 countries throughout Europe between October 13th and 26th under the supervision of FRONTEX. More here.
The report by the Council of Europe is available here (in English)
In total, 19,234 people were arrested, controlled and questioned during this operation whose objective was to gather various information on immigrants and ‘new migration routes’ so as to strenghten anti immigration policies. 257 people considered as ‘smugglers’ were also arrested.
More than 6,002 controls took place these last two weeks, among which 1,538 at the external borders, leading to the arrest of 9,890 people; and 4,464 inside the European territory, during which 9,344 people were arrested. The model pupils of the war against migrants are Italy (5,954 people controlled), Germany (3,683 people controlled), Hungary (3,075 people controlled), Austria (1,219 people controlled) and the United Kingdom (995 people controlled). Countries where the least controls took place were Latvia, Estonia and Switzerland (which doesn’t mean that they are more ‘welcoming’ than the others).
The number of people controlled is much more important than in previous operations: in 2013, during the Perkunas operation (two weeks in September-October) 10,459 people had been arrested, and in 2012, during the Aprhodite operation, 5,298.
A major part of the people arrested are coming from countries at war or in conflict; countries or regions where Western powers went and wreaked havoc over the past years in the name of capitalism or colonialist domination: Syria, Afghanistan, Kosovo, Erythrea, Somalia, etc. Today, a few thousands of refugees find themselves unwanted in Europe, chased by the police and living in disastrous conditions.
In France, 958 people were controlled, mainly from Syria, Erythrea and Albania (371 people). In Paris, a lot of controls were made around Gare du Nord where train depart for Calais and its region, border zone with England where loads of migrants are going to, hoping to cross the Channel or head towards the north of Europe.
Several initiatives around Europe tried to inform on this operation and sometimes to prevent it: spreading of multilingual flyers, putting up posters, gatherings, resistance to controls. An interactive map of the different controls was put in place, locating the control zones on the European level.
Mos Maiorum was of an exceptional nature due to the scale of the system, but raids happen daily all over Europe to fill detention centres and charter flights, and to prevent anyone to go where they want to, above all when coming from poor countries. Let’s hope that the soldiarity movements that arose in reaction to this operation will continue to build up and that we will be capable of blocking the deportation machine with concrete measures.
Published on Sans Papiers Ni Frontières
