{"id":914047,"date":"2026-06-19T18:15:39","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T23:15:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/19\/europe-using-healthcare-denial-to-stop-migrants-reaching-west-report-claims\/"},"modified":"2026-06-19T18:15:39","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T23:15:39","slug":"europe-using-healthcare-denial-to-stop-migrants-reaching-west-report-claims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/19\/europe-using-healthcare-denial-to-stop-migrants-reaching-west-report-claims\/","title":{"rendered":"Europe Using \u2018Healthcare Denial\u2019 to Stop Migrants Reaching West, Report Claims"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n


\nMigrants at \u2018Vucjak\u2019 camp in Bihac, Bosnia and Herzegovina, October 25,\u00a0 2019. Photo: EPA\/FEHIM DEMIR<\/small><\/p>\n

A report by No Name Kitchen, NNK, a grassroots movement mainly assisting people on the move to the EU, accuses countries across Europe of denying healthcare to migrants as a way to stop them from reaching their destinations.<\/p>\n

Ric Fernandez, coordinator at No Name Kitchen, told BIRN: \u201cThis investigation reveals three key findings: barriers to healthcare for people on the move are not incidental \u2013 they are systematic. They carry a racism-based dimension. And they function as a tool of deterrence. Healthcare denial is not a side effect of the border regime. It is one of its core mechanisms.\u201d<\/p>\n

The report, which analysed 336 testimonies gathered in the field between January 2022 and December 2025, claims that \u201chealth has been weaponised: denied, obstructed, and withheld as an instrument of deterrence\u201d, adding that \u201cthe border does not end at the fence. It reaches into the ambulance that doesn\u2019t come, the triage room that looks the other way, the camp doctor available once a week who refuses to treat new arrivals citing administrative delays.\u201d<\/p>\n

The report notes that several people on the move died because they were denied medical assistance after they suffered violence by the border police of different European countries. One was 41-year-old Mukter, who died in November 2025 after being violently pushed back from Croatia to the Lipa holding centre in Bosnia and Herzegovina. \u201cFor three days, the people around him begged guards to call an ambulance. When residents ran to the guards to report that Mukter could not breathe, the response was: \u2018We are eating right now. We will check tomorrow\u2019,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMukter did not pass away. He was left to die,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n

According to NNK, a majority of the pushback testimonies they gathered \u201cdocument beatings \u2013 fractures, head trauma, permanent eye injuries, blows to the throat and chest \u2013 inflicted by officers whose salaries are paid by European taxpayers. 54% of first aid treatments provided by NNK in 2025 involved walking-related injuries \u2013 wounds, frostbite, infected blisters \u2013 sustained on routes that only exist because safe and legal alternatives have been systematically dismantled. People are pushed into freezing rivers, stripped of their shoes in sub-zero temperatures, denied food for days, locked in cells without heating, and turned away from emergency rooms.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another case that supports the conclusion that countries across Europe are using healthcare denial as a tool against migrants is the deaths between December 27 and 29, 2024, of three Egyptian minors who irregularly crossed from Turkey into Bulgaria.<\/p>\n

Two activist groups, Collettivo Rotte Balcaniche and No Name Kitchen, blamed Bulgarian authorities<\/a> for this in a report<\/a> published in January, 2025. A medical report concluded that the cause of death was hypothermia. At the time, BIRN published an\u00a0account of the incident<\/a>, including the response of the Bulgarian Border Police, who denied claims of deliberate neglect and accused the activists of obstructing police rescue actions.<\/p>\n

No Name Kitchen attributed some human rights violations of people on the move to the Lipa Temporary Recpetion Centre in Bosnia hich \u201creceived \u20ac1.7M from the EU, plus contributions from Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, and the Council of Europe Development Bank\u201d, as well as \u201cSerbia\u2019s reception centres that have received over \u20ac40M in EU funding since 2015.<\/p>\n

\u201cFunding a facility where a man dies because guards were eating dinner entails a co-responsibility to investigate the facts and take measures,\u201d NNK said in a press release launching the report.<\/p>\n

On June 1, 2026, European Council and Parliament negotiators reached a provisional deal<\/a> on a new EU Pact on Migration and Asylum, which also envisages \u201cthe establishment of return hubs in countries outside the EU, while respecting fundamental rights\u201d.<\/p>\n

According to NNK, the regulation is problematic because \u201cwithout enforceable health safeguards, it risks institutionalising medical neglect as a permanent feature of European border governance\u201d, demanding \u201cindependent criminal investigations into the deaths documented in this report.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Xhorxhina Bami
Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Migrants at \u2018Vucjak\u2019 camp in Bihac, Bosnia and Herzegovina, October 25,\u00a0 2019. Photo: EPA\/FEHIM DEMIR A report by No Name Kitchen, NNK, a grassroots movement mainly assisting people on the move to the EU, accuses countries across Europe of denying healthcare to migrants as a way to stop them from reaching their destinations. Ric Fernandez<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":914048,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3098,151],"tags":[9985,6227],"class_list":["post-914047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-europe","category-using","tag-europe","tag-using"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/914047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=914047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/914047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/914048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=914047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=914047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=914047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}