In recent years, EU state actors have spent billions to fortify their borders in efforts to block the migration of people who can´t access to safe passage when seeking for a better life. A significant part of those resources are used to fund pushbacks, meaning the informal expulsion of people from one country to another without due process. They differ from regular deportations because they are not backed by any legal framework.
Since 2017, activists from No Name Kitchen are present at the borders of the EU, supporting people on the move to satisfy their basic needs, building mutual trust and collecting the testimonies from those who suffer violent pushbacks and other abuses. The result of our work is compiled in more than 1.000 reports, included in the "Black Book of Pushbacks", describing the experiences of 12,654 people who have experienced human rights violations at external borders in Greece, Italy, Croatia, Slovenia or Hungary along the so-called ‘Balkan route’. By bringing to light the suffering, NNK and our partners claim EU institutions and member state governments to be held accountable for the inhumane and degrading treatment of the people.
You can download our last report to discover what has been happening in between March and October 2023 at the borders of the EU, including the testimonies of the violence suffered by 1.222 people.
This campaign is created to support the work of reporting border violence, because NNK is a volunteer-based movement, but it doesn´t mean we don´t have terrific bills at the end of the month. Fiel reporters need a bed, some hot water, a laptop and wifi connection to write an upload the testimonies, but above all, we need resources to provide people with means for their protetcion after suffering pushbacks. How could we take a testimony to somebody who was stolen by the police if we donñt provide some food and clothes before any interview. Here below a detailed description of the costs to monitor violence in the spots where NNK is present throughout the year.
All our work is part of the initiative “Bloody Borders” to raise awareness among the civil society about how the taxes of the EU citizens are sued to torture other human beings and to advocate for the transformation of the cruel EU´s borders regime. Discover more in www.nonamekitchen.org