Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire, Conservative)
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department pursuant to the answer of 30 June 2011, Official Report, column 893W, on asylum: EU countries, from which countries she expects foreign nationals to attempt to enter the EU illegally via the (a) Mediterranean coast and (b) land border with Turkey in 2011-12.
Damian Green (Minister of State (Immigration), Home Office; Ashford, Conservative)
All north African countries, including Egypt, with a Mediterranean coast have been used as staging posts for illegal travel to the EU. Libya and Tunisia in particular are currently the main source countries of foreign nationals attempting to reach the EU. The majority of these foreign nationals target southern Italy, predominantly the island of Lampedusa, and Malta. Increases in attempts by illegal migrants to enter the EU via the sea have been seen again this year following the Arab Spring uprisings.
Migrants departing from Libya are mostly from the countries within the horn of Africa, the sub-Saharan region, central Africa and lower numbers from Asia. Those departing from Tunisia are almost exclusively Tunisians.
Migratory flows from Tunisia have decreased recently as a consequence of the bilateral agreement reached between Italy and Tunisia, on5 April 2011, which has resulted in regular repatriations of Tunisian nationals and the strengthening of police surveillance along the Tunisian coast.
Following a decrease in illegal border crossings at Turkey's land border with Greece during the first quarter of 2011, operational data from the European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Border of the Member States of the European Union (Frontex) indicate that this land border section is again facing an increase in detection numbers, mostly due to Afghan and Pakistani nationals trying to unlawfully cross the external borders.