border regime and what a transformative critique might look like. Indeed, states’ blatant violations of human rights and the sheer politics of containment are intertwined with a hygienicsanitary discourse which justifies border closures in the name of both migrants and citizens’ safety. Therefore, critical interventions cannot be limited to the denunciation of states’ infringement of international law and refugee conventions (AUTHORS, forthcoming) but also require a strategic appropriation and twisting of the discourse on migrant protection and safety. That is, in the face of states’ argument that “we close ports to protect refugees”, the laborious work of critique might engage in disjoining protection from containment and racialised spatial restrictions. Relatedly, claims for health and safety cannot be predicated on a divisive ground which reproduces hierarchies between migrants and citizens: on the contrary, the ‘migrant question’ in pandemic times could become the terrain of struggles for equal access to safe spaces. References Abramowitz, S., Marten, M. and Panter‐Brick, C., 2015. Medical humanitarianism: Anthropologists speak out on policy and practice. Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 29(1), pp.1-23. Alarm Phone (2020a). Escalating Violence in the Aegean Sea. Available at: https://alarmphone.org/en/2020/03/04/escalating-violence-in-the-aegean-sea/?post_type_release_type=post (accessed on 10/09/2020). Alarm Phone (2020b). Sabotage, Delays and Non-Assistance: Another day in Malta’s SAR zone. Available at: https://alarmphone.org/en/2020/05/03/sabotage-delays-and-non-assistance/?post_type_release_type=post (accessed on 10/09/2020). Alarm Phone (2020c). Also in the Central Mediterranean Sea: Black Lives Matter! Available at: https://alarmphone.org/en/2020/07/06/also-in-the-central-mediterranean-sea-black-lives- matter/ (accessed on 10/09/2020). Albahari, M., 2015. Crimes of peace: Mediterranean migrations at the world's deadliest border. University of Pennsylvania Press. 21