Unwanted, Unnoticed: an audit of 160 asylum and immigration-related deaths in Europe BELGIUM SNAPSHOT: The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) condemned Belgium in November 20105 for its failure to house asylum seekers. Dozens were evicted from railway stations in Brussels onto the streets; families with young children were allowed to stay, as there was nowhere else for them to go. UNCAT expressed concern over the length of asylum seekers’ detention pending return under the Dublin Regulation.6 • Yahya Tabbabi (31), 04/01/2010 Tunisian migrant Tabbabi was found dead in his cell in the Vottem prison (Brussels), of an overdose of methadone and benzodiazepine, drugs prescribed by the prison doctor. The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network and the World Organisation Against Torture questioned the circumstances of his death, saying that according to his family, Tabbabi was not a drug addict, and they counter the prison’s claim that a trained doctor had diagnosed him and prescribed the drugs correctly.7 • Unidentified man, 02/06/2010 An asylum seeker from the Ivory Coast died in the corridor of a reception centre in Charleroi. The man had recently been transferred to the reception centre due to his deteriorating mental health. As reception centres are notoriously overcrowded in Belgium, he had previously been living in a hostel where, for two months, he had been unable to access social or medical services. By the time his mental health had been assessed and he arrived at Charleroi, he was refusing to talk or to eat. A source says he was clearly emotionally stressed and ill, but Fedasil, the federal agency, made no attempt to assess his condition. An autopsy revealed that his death was not self-inflicted or caused by substance abuse, and his death was ascribed to ‘natural causes’.8 • Rexhep Salijaj (57), 02/02/2012 An asylum seeker from Kosovo, Salijaj committed suicide a few hours before his planned deportation from Belgium. The war in Kosovo separated Salijaj from his wife and five children, whom he found ten years later in Belgium. They tried to obtain residency for Salijaj through family reunification, but in July 2011 the law on family reunion changed and his application was rejected. A plea for humanitarian leave was ignored and he was to be deported on 3 February 2012. Subsequently, the Belgian NGO, the Organisation and Initiative for Refugees and Foreigners (CIRE), called for a repeal of the strict new law on family reunification.9 • Samiyou Djimadou (29), 17/06/2013 A Beninese asylum seeker, Djimadou committed suicide by drowning himself in a canal after an attempt to throw himself under a lorry in Nerder-over-Heembeek failed. Although asylum claims in Belgium should be examined within six months, Djimadou had been waiting for ten months, and had apparently suffered from psychological problems and insomnia due to fear of deportation and possible torture in Benin. A spokesperson for the Commissioner General for Refugees and Stateless Persons claimed that the office had not been made aware of Djimadou’s psychological problems, and if it had known, it would have expedited the application process.10 • Aref Hassanzade (22), 10/2013 An Afghan asylum seeker, Hassanzade was reportedly killed after refusal of asylum and return to Afghanistan. Hassanzade was from the Nangarhar Province and claimed that he fled because he did not want to join the Taliban, who were pressurising him. He arrived in Belgium in March 2009 and made four separate claims for protection, all of which were rejected. He returned to Afghanistan at the beginning of 2013, and on 14 October a lawyer from the Progressive Lawyers Network received a phone call from one of Hassanzade’s friends reporting that he had been killed by the Taliban.11 IRR | European Research Progamme Briefing No. 10 8