Operation Sovereign Borders
Operation Sovereign Borders is a program launched by the Australian government under Prime Minister Tony Abbott in 2013 to prevent people from being smuggled into Australia by sea. The core of the program is a zero-tolerance policy , under which ships carrying refugees are intercepted on the high seas and forced to turn back. Internationally, the program is known as “stop the boats”.
background
During the 2013 general election campaign in Australia , Tony Abbott made a promise to stop the boats. He referred to the increasing number of boat refugees coming to Australia. While Australia reached a four-digit number of refugees at most in the past decades, there was a drastic increase in the number of refugee ships in 2012 and 2013. Again and again incidents occurred here in which refugees drowned.
course
Total number of boat refugees
According to the Australian government, no refugee boat has reached Australia since the start of the mission, and there are also no further ship accidents with dead people.
| Number of boat refugees as of 2009 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| year | Number of refugees | |||
| 2009 | 2726 | |||
| 2010 | 6555 | |||
| 2011 | 4565 | |||
| 2012 | 17204 | |||
| 2013 | 20587 | |||
| 2014 | 160 | |||
| 2015 | 0 | |||
| 2016 | 0 | |||
| Data source: Parliament of Australia: Boat arrivals in Australia: a quick guide to the statistics
Data source 2014–16: Spiegel.de: deterring, isolating, shifting |
||||
Number of people killed in accidents
The Monash University counts all people who came on the flight to Australia to death since the year 2000. All types of entry are counted, not just those by boat.
| Death toll (as of May 2018) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| year | Number of dead | |||
| 2000 | 374 | |||
| 2001 | 366 | |||
| 2002 | 9 | |||
| 2003 | 4th | |||
| 2004 | 2 | |||
| 2005 | 3 | |||
| 2006 | 13 | |||
| 2007 | 0 | |||
| 2008 | 4th | |||
| 2009 | 132 | |||
| 2010 | 168 | |||
| 2011 | 235 | |||
| 2012 | 421 | |||
| 2013 | 240 | |||
| 2014 | 6th | |||
| 2015 | 9 | |||
| 2016 | 10 | |||
| 2017 | 6th | |||
| 2018 | 1 | |||
| Data source: Monash University: Australian Border Deaths Database | ||||
criticism
Foreign observers criticized that the Abbott government did not sufficiently inform the public about the specific handling of refugee boats. The government has also refused to conduct an investigation into allegations of warning shots and violence in connection with the interception of boats. Tony Abbott stated in this connection that it was not in Australia's interest to provide information that could be useful to people smugglers.
See also
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Donaukurier , April 20, 2015: Australia's rigid refugee policy as a model for the EU?
- ↑ liberal.org.au , accessed on May 9, 2015: Tony Abbott - Address to the 2013 Federal Coalition Campaign Launch ( Memento of the original from March 28, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ sievx.com , accessed on April 20, 2015: DROWNINGS ON THE PUBLIC RECORD OF PEOPLE ATTEMPTING TO ENTER AUSTRALIA IRREGULARLY BY BOAT SINCE 1998
- ↑ Parliament of Australia , January 23, 2014: Boat arrivals in Australia: a quick guide to the statistics
- ↑ Spiegel.de , December 10, 2017: Quenching, sealing off, rolling off
- ↑ Australian Border Deaths Database - The Border Crossing Observatory. Archived from the original on June 12, 2018 ; accessed on July 22, 2019 .
- ↑ Australia's Fight Against Boat People. In: ipg-journal. 2014, accessed March 30, 2018 .
- ^ Tony Abbott compares stopping asylum-seeker boats to war. In: news.com.au. January 10, 2014, accessed March 30, 2018 .
