In the last years, a policy-made crisis has been unfolding across Europe, at its borders, and beyond, which has resulted in a surge in deaths, despair and destitution among people attempting to seek safety and protection within the European Union (EU).

Across Europe and beyond, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) teams have been treating the devastating consequences of restrictive migration policies and practices and we have seen first-hand their human cost. 

We have responded in places such as Libya, the Balkans, the Central Mediterranean, Poland, Greece and Italy, which have become laboratories and testing grounds for increasingly harmful policies and practices.

Our latest report, Death, despair and destitution: the human costs of the EU’s migration policies, illustrates a shocking embrace of violent tactics, sanctioned by EU policies and EU member states, and emboldened by increasingly dehumanising political rhetoric from European leaders. Read the full report below.