08.04.2020: Food distribution in Traiskirchen

As already reported, there are long waiting lines before the food distribution. During the mealtime there are 40-50 people in the same room at once. Only some refugees got masks, there were no gloves given out.
On saturday, 04.04.2020, we got the following picture. To offer a 'self-service' of open food goes against all security restrictions in the current situation. The risk of further infections is knowingly accepted by those responsible.

21.03.2020: Covid-19: Decent housing now - end the camp policy!

Return centres, refugee camps and detention centres for deportees are a massive threat for the health of the inhabitants in the current situation and must be closed!
Current events at the Schwechat Return Centre (Rückkehrzentrum Schwechat) at Vienna Airport show how corona containment works on the basis of excluded groups and is being reduced to absurdity: Although the inhumane container return camp in the cargo area has been cleared, the residents report that they have now been accommodated in Traiskirchen in dormitories with many more people.

It is absolutely absurd to prohibit crowds of people in public space and to demand social distancing (as useful as these measures may be) on the one hand, and on the other hand to continue forcing refugees to live in overcrowded camps. In case of one infected person, this exposes all others to the risk of infection and aggravates the already precarious and isolated situation of people in these camps . In Salzburg, for example, the first camp as a whole had to be quarantined.

In order to avoid further danger, the refugees must be provided with decentralised apartments in which it is possible to protect their own health or, in the event of an infection, to go through a domestic quarantine under humane conditions that do not endanger others or themselves. Those refugees who are accommodated in the return centres were mostly torn out of functioning social structures in order to put them under psychological pressure and to extort a supposedly "voluntary return". In the current situation, the policy of camp accommodation is once again proving to be inhumane and must be ended immediately! The same applies to the detention centres. As in the German federal state of Lower Saxony, all detainees must be released to freedom, but without tickets for "voluntary" return and with cancellation of the arrest warrant!


We demand:

• the immediate redistribution of the inhabitants of the detention centres and camps into decent and decentralised apartments.
• the immediate closure of all return and detention centres and refugee camps
• the immediate suspension of deportations
• the immediate evacuation of all camps on the EU's external borders in favour of decent and decentralised accommodation and supplies
• a policy of solidarity and participation, rather than isolation and imprisonment