EU migration policies put refugees'' lives at risk: Amnesty

The European Union's strict policies to seal off its borders put the lives of refugees and migrants in great peril, according to the human rights group Amnesty International.

"At least 23,000 people are estimated to have lost their lives trying to reach Europe since 2000," said the London-based rights group in its latest report published on Wednesday.

The report, titled "The Human Cost of Fortress Europe", describes the situation as an "increasingly impenetrable fortress" built by the EU and its member states to prevent flow of irregular migrants.

"In order to 'defend' its borders, the EU has funded sophisticated surveillance systems, given financial support to member states at its external borders, such as Bulgaria and Greece, to fortify their borders and created an agency to coordinate a Europe-wide team of border guards to patrol EU frontiers," the report said.

The human rights group criticized individual EU member states for expelling migrants and refugees unlawfully without providing access to asylum procedures.

"They are ill-treated by border guards and coastguards. In addition, some EU countries are using the threat of lengthy detention as a deterrent for those thinking about coming to Europe," the report said.

The report also highlighted the European bloc's "increasingly harsh" migration policies against refugees and immigrants, and its efforts to justify these policies.

"Since the onset of the Syrian civil war, over 2.8 million Syrians have fled their homes - more than half of them children. Only 96,000 had reached Europe in search of protection by the end of April 2014," said the report.

The human rights group also set forth that the EU member states were in breach of their international and regional human rights obligations, while the EU itself appeared to have abandoned its own founding principles and values by turning a blind eye to violations at its borders.

The measures aimed at stopping irregular migration to Europe lead to human suffering and are practiced at cost of human lives, said the group, calling the measures "questionable."

"With safer routes into the EU being closed off by fences, increased surveillance and the deployment of more and more security forces, people are being forced to take ever more dangerous routes, sometimes with tragic consequences. Women, men and children are drowning at sea or suffocating in trucks. They face violence at EU's borders and are denied their right to seek asylum. Those seeking to enter the EU end up trapped in countries such as Libya, Morocco, Ukraine and Turkey, where their rights are at risk. In some of these countries they suffer destitution without access to social and economic rights, in some they face violence and even torture," the report further said.

It also claimed that almost half of those irregularly entering Europe were fleeing conflict and persecution in countries like Syria, Eritrea, Afghanistan and Somalia, adding that "the EU is no more porous for them than it is for economic migrants."

At the end of the report, the Amnesty International called on the EU and its members states to urgently review their migration policy so as to shift their primary focus from protecting borders to protecting people.

Back in June, the group also accused the UN Security Council of adding to the global refugee crisis, calling on it "to act more decisively to protect civilians and prevent millions more people being driven away from their homes".