Page 71 - FMR64_Trafficking and smuggling & Climate crisis and local communities_2020_web

FMR 64 Trafficking and smuggling 71

June 2020 www.fmreview.org/issue64

humanitarian law, police were unequipped to offer a crossing to Greece at the right price.
to understand these experiences and often These smuggling networks remained mostly
kept refugees incarcerated for months dormant until new pressures emerged to
or longer, unsure about what to do. make the risks of the trip relatively lower
The same trends of shifting risk onto than the risks of staying in the country
refugee clients were reported on the land of first asylum. For example, as a result
part of the Western Balkans route. Where of Turkish crackdowns on ethnic Kurds,
previously smugglers had accompanied hundreds of smuggled Kurdish Syrians
refugees, after 2014 they would point refugees are now appearing on a weekly basis in
in a general direction and tell them to keep Greek cities from Athens to Thessaloniki.
walking until they reached a transit city. We
spoke to refugees who were unaccompanied Impact on citizens assisting refugees
for hundreds of kilometres in the wilderness, Struggling to reach evasive and adaptive
suffering flu, symptoms of hypothermia, smugglers, State institutions also targeted
dehydration, poisonous insect bites and humanitarian NGOs as the first point of
exposure to cold. The most severe incidents intersection between the illicit and licit
of shifted risk were from counter-smuggling market activities. Along the Western
operations that were surreptitiously Balkans route, the most heavily affected
delegated by national governments to were small, local NGOs that have none of
paramilitary groups who were armed with the resilience provided by the multi-million
machetes, firearms, dogs and all-terrain dollar budgets or legal offices of larger,
vehicles, violently assaulting refugees that international NGOs. For example, on the
they either misperceived as being ‘illegal Greek island of Lesvos authorities were
immigrants’ or misidentified as smugglers. for the most part unable to detain high-
Costs as well as risks increased level smugglers who managed operations
dramatically: a pre-2014 level of several remotely from Turkey while delegating
hundred US dollars per person per border risky work in Greek waters to lower-level
crossing rose to $10,000 or more after 2017. operatives. As a result, Greek authorities
As these costs spiked, smuggling became began pressuring NGOs that were perceived
a luxury service available only to the to be facilitating smuggling operations. This
wealthiest and best-connected refugees. included arrests of volunteers for the NGO
Elaborate, extremely costly smuggling Emergency Response Centre International
packages emerged, such as operations for alleged collusion with smugglers in
involving a yacht and crew, simulating a their attempts to prevent drownings of
lavish personal cruise in order to avoid refugees crossing from the Turkish coast.
detection by maritime patrols on the lookout In Belgrade, Serbia, national policies
for cheap, rigid-hull inflatable dinghies. focused on limiting local NGOs’ freedom
Other expensive options included fake to operate. For example, one local NGO that
passports with plane tickets and coaching reached thousands of refugees, Miksaliste,
on how to assume the fake identity. was required to relocate from its premises
By the end of 2017, the costs and risks of near the city’s central bus station to a
smuggling had begun to exceed the financial location far less accessible to the refugees
means and risk tolerance of most refugees, who depend on its services. These efforts
reducing the prevalence of smuggling in had the effect of breaking up civil society
the Balkans in terms of absolute numbers. and limiting local humanitarianism, but
Having dodged any real risk, most smugglers did little to disrupt smugglers, who simply
simply found other work, living on savings adapted to the changes. As an illustration,
while blending into cities along the route as the volume of licit non-food aid handouts
as part-time construction workers, tailors, from NGOs shrank, a booming grey/black-
barbers, traders or money lenders – although market economy emerged for everything
often still making approaches to newcomers from diapers to tents as smugglers saw