Skip to main content
The Morning Star Shop
Voices from the front line of the refugee crisis
BEN COWLES talks to some of those who are battling to save lives on the borders of ‘Fortress Europe’
Sea-Eye 4 crew members rescue people from a wooden boat in the central Mediterranean [Camilla Kranzusch/Sea-Eye]

EUROPEAN governments have either given up trying to save lives in the Mediterranean and Aegean seas, in the Channel, at the borders between Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria, Spain and Morocco, and along the bloc’s eastern borders, leaving people to drown, starve or freeze to death — or they have actively made their borders deadlier.

At the same time, European states have also deliberately hindered and even tried to criminalise the activities of the activists and civil society organisations that have stepped in where they left off.

About 1,500 people drowned in the central Mediterranean this year, according to the International Organisation for Migration’s latest estimates. And over 31,400 people were returned to Libya.

Simon Campbell, Border Violence Monitoring Network

Natalie Gruber, Josoor

Sophie W, Sea Eye

Kim, Channel Rescue

Marie, Mare Liberum

Deanna, Alarm Phone

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
shower
Books / 13 June 2025
13 June 2025

RON JACOBS welcomes a book that tells the story of the far right in Greece from the perspective of migrants

Golden Dawn members hold flags with the meander symbol at a rally outside of party HQ, Athens, March 2015 / Pic: DTRocks/CC
Book Review / 24 April 2025
24 April 2025

These are vivid accounts of people’s experiences of far-right violence along with documentation of popular resistance, says MARJORIE MAYO

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper during a visit to Staffordshire
Britain / 30 March 2025
30 March 2025
Campaigns hit out as Cooper tub thumps on migrant family life with public threat to human rights act
Poet Fred Joseph
Interview / 13 August 2024
13 August 2024
John Kendall Hawkins speaks to black US poet FREDERICK JOSEPH, author of We Alive, Beloved