Stop Building Borders Within Borders
In South Korea, where division has cut the country off from the continent, the airport is the only point of entry, and every foreigner passes through it. Yet there are people here who are not welcome. They knocked on Korea’s door with great difficulty, driven by the will to live and to escape persecution in their countries of origin, but Korea blocks them at the entrance and leaves them abandoned at the airport.
Five Ethiopian refugee applicants have been sleeping rough at Incheon Airport Terminal 1 since they received a decision not to refer their cases to refugee status determination on April 8. In Ethiopia, civil war between government forces and rebels and conflict between religions are severe, and refugees continue to be produced there even now. Yet since the decision of non-referral, none of the immigration authorities, the airlines or the airport corporation takes responsibility for the Ethiopian refugee applicants, who cannot return to their country of origin. For nearly two months they have been left in the airport terminal, unable to wash, eat or sleep properly.
In this way, refugee applicants at the airport are still left in a situation of extreme survival, having to manage their food, lodging and health problems on their own. A two-year-old child who previously stayed at the airport had soles that cracked like a rice paddy in drought because of the dry, cold airport environment, and suffered from a high fever. Women whose health had weakened had to go hungry or get by on bread and chocolate. In 2019, four children and their parents had to wash in public airport restrooms for a year, sleeping rough and becoming a spectacle for passengers using Incheon Airport.
In August 2021, the Immigration Control Act was amended so that the state is responsible for operating the departure waiting room, the space where a foreigner who has been refused entry waits until departure. This was a partial achievement won after it was repeatedly pointed out that the departure waiting room had no legal basis for its operation and was run by private parties. Provisions on operating the departure waiting room are due to take effect on August 18, and an advance notice of administrative legislation was issued on May 25. Even so, with the operation of the departure waiting room imminent, the state remains silent on the situation of the five Ethiopian refugee applicants. It is busy evading responsibility, claiming that it has no authority or duty because the amended law has not yet taken effect.
Meanwhile, the departure waiting room currently at the airport is a temporary waiting facility where persons to be repatriated wait for departure for a short time of up to a week. It is installed inside the security zone, so no sunlight enters and ventilation is poor. It is hard to provide meals properly, and it is not a space in which to sleep and live. Visits and communication with the outside are blocked, and urgent medical support is hard to guarantee. Because there is no system for quickly lodging an objection against a decision of non-referral to refugee status determination, airport refugee applicants can only contest it through litigation, and the room can never be an environment in which they can stay for a long period. Even after the amended Immigration Control Act takes effect, it is clear that airport refugee applicants will still be confined in a cramped space and subjected to poor treatment.
A situation in which airport refugee applicants, unable even to set foot on Korean soil, are pressed under the threat of what amounts to forced return must not be repeated any longer. The state must not escape its responsibility by confining people in a cramped space and keeping them alive on hamburgers and cola. We must not inflict despair, helplessness, humiliation and threats to survival on those who have risked their lives to reach Korea on the other side of the globe in search of freedom, safety and peace. To ensure that every refugee receives dignified treatment and a formal opportunity for status determination, we must stop building borders within borders right now.
Guarantee prompt entry and a formal refugee status determination for the Ethiopian airport refugees
Stop the pressure of forced return on the Ethiopian airport refugees
Guarantee airport refugee applicants a formal refugee status determination and proper treatment
May 26, 2022
Korea Refugee Rights Network (KORIN)