There are more and more refugees at Europe’s gates, but teargas and barbed wire are not the answer Europe is approaching the point where the only way to control desperate migrants could soon be the regular use of physical force. Scenes of violence this week on the Greek-Macedonian border, where refugees breached a border fence with a homemade battering ram, and in Calais, where police fired teargas at people protesting against the demolition of their shelters, suggest we are close to a line that we absolutely must not cross. Europe is already guilty of causing the deaths of many migrants by giving them, in effect, no alternative except to risk their lives at sea or on the tracks leading into the Channel tunnel. That is bad enough, and a stain on the record, but to actually battle with migrants in this way is worse. Who can doubt that, if it continues, there will be deaths and injuries? Another kind of violence, in the shape of attacks on those who have reached a supposedly safe haven and are in hostels and centres in Germany and elsewhere, compounds the offence. Continue reading...
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