Thousands take to the streets across Europe to demand an immediate evacuation of refugees after the Moria fire.
Protests for the reception of refugees all over Europe organized by Seebrücke, Europe Must Act and many other grassroots movements across the EU
All camps must be evacuated immediately #leavenoonebehind
Berlin, Warsaw, Madrid, Paris, The Hague - protests against the intolerable conditions at the EU's external borders will take place in many European cities over the next few days. Europe has held people fleeing violence and terror in detention for years. In the Moria Camp on the Greek island of Lesvos, 13,000 people are now forced to camp out in the open, in the heat and without access to health care, water and food after a fire destroyed their camp last week. On the streets they are again exposed to police violence and arbitrariness.
The German government has hesitantly agreed to take in 1,553 people. At the same time, more than 180 municipalities in Germany alone are ready to take in the refugees, while the reception capacities in the country far exceed the announced 1,553. Moreover, dozens of cities in Spain, France, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Italy expressed their solidarity with people on the move as well as their readiness to take them in.
Kirsty Evans, Field and Campaigns Coordinator of Europe Must Act, explains: “Europe must be aware of its responsibilities. The camps on our external borders are a tragedy of unimagined proportions for the people and a situation that must not be allowed to continue. We are calling on European leaders to implement migration policies that ensure protection, as opposed to exclusion.”
"The strong signal from European cities to the EU authorities is amplified by an overwhelming solidarity wave coming from countless civil society initiatives and movements across Europe. In the coming days we will take it to the streets to stand up for equal rights for all people across the European continent and demand a complete evacuation of all refugees from the Greek islands. The real European solidarity is without borders!", concludes Alina Lyapina from Seebrücke.
Europe Must Act is a growing movement of grassroots NGOs and civil society, determined to fundamentally change the way Europe treats the asylum seekers arriving at all its borders, land and sea.
Seebrücke is a civil society movement that advocates for sea rescue, legal routes to Europe and a municipal reception of refugees in Germany, Switzerland and Austria.
Demonstrations take place in:
Krakow, Copenhagen, Florence, Katowice, Warsaw, Arnhem, The Hague, Bad Kreuznach, Brussels, Rotterdam, Halle (Saale), Herrenberg, Madrid, Milano, Winterthur, Duisburg, Esslingen, Leuuwarden, Mainz, Marburg, Oldenburg, Paderborn, Wangen, Wildeshausen, Barcelona, Berlin, Cologne, Dusseldorf, Bielefeld, Birmingham, Essen, Braunschweig, Göttingen, Helsinki, Lisbon, Luxembourg, Malmö, Nijmegen, Pforzheim, Paris, Poland-wide, Porto, Prague, Riga, Stockholm, Tampere, Utrecht, York, Rome.
Press contacts: Europe Must Act - Germany, germanymustact@gmail.com
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