Ladies and gentlemen, dear colleagues, on behalf of the Center for Area Studies, the

Center for Human Rights Erlangen-Nürnberg, the Nürnberg Center for Human Rights, and

FAU Integra, I would like to welcome you here today for our second event in our serious

safe passage, safe harbors?

My very special welcome goes, of course, first to our guests from Libya and Italy, Eunice

Nannis and Christopher Hine.

They have kindly agreed to inform us here about the current situation in the Mediterranean

Sea and on both sides of the Mediterranean Sea, Libya and Italy.

Eunice Nannis has been working as a journalist and as a freelance consultant and analyst

for an international non-governmental organization.

Currently he's working for the Global Initiative.

He belongs to the Amazigh minority in Libya and currently lives in Italy.

Eunice has been working both on the detention centers in Libya and together with his wife

Nancy Parsia has reported also on the Libyan Coast Guard the EU is cooperating with.

Christopher Hine is the founder and former director of CIR, the Italian Refugee Council,

that he still attends as a board member.

The CIR, for those of you who don't know it, is an independent humanitarian organization

formed in 1990 in Italy at the initiative of the United Nations with the objective of

defending the rights of refugees and asylum seekers.

It aims at promoting access to the protection, reception, integration, enjoyment of rights,

social and psychological support for refugees and the voluntary return.

And it also carries out specific projects in favor of refugees who survived torture.

Christopher Hine is also a teacher.

He's teaching immigration and asylum law at the Luis Guido Carli University and at the

Sapienza Universitat di Roma.

Thank you very much to both of you for joining us today and for providing us insights into

the dramatic situation in both countries and in the mid.

Safe Passage, Safe Harbors, I said this is written with a question mark and I'm very

sad to say it may even sound cynical today.

Only yesterday the UN High Commissioner for Refugees released a report according to which

an average of six people died every day in the last year on their attempt to reach Europe.

And also just yesterday Italy allowed the stranded Sea Watch 3, our guest in this series

last time in December, to bring its passengers to shore after the European Court of Human

Rights had ordered Italy to immediately provide at least food and medical assistance to those

on board the vessel off the coast of Sicily.

The three mayors of our city of Erlangen have now urged Chancellor Merkel and Bavarian Minister

of the Interior Joachim Herrmann to allow the municipality to take in a share of the,

believe it or not, 47 migrants on the Sea Watch 3 that Germany, France, Portugal, Romania,

and Malta have agreed to receive.

This symbolic open letter is just a small signal of a larger movement in civil society.

As a part of this larger movement, at the end of this session the Aktion Seebrücke

asked me to explain their aims and strategies in Erlangen.

Is there somebody here from the Seebrücke?

They're not present even.

That's a pity.

That's a pity.

Ah, yeah, perfect.

Okay.

Okay.

Dear colleagues, I'm happy to, that our series on safe passages is co-organized by the Center