Belgium: Migrants on Hunger Strike Between Life & Death
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Hundreds of migrants continue hunger-striking for legal status for two months, without any response from the government.
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Asylum seeker on hunger-strike being transported to the hospital in Brussels | Credit: Reuters
Hundreds of migrants in the Belgian capital, Brussels, who have been on hunger strike for around two months, have been demanding the goverment for a legal status - those include the right to remain after years living and working in the country. The migrants, reportedly, have decided to stop drinking water.
The hunger strike of May 23 have led the migrants into a visually painful emanciation. The majority of these migrants have been residing in Belgium for years, and they are of South Asian and North African origin. About 75% of them - 350 individuals - have been refusing to drink.
Doctors Without Borders, which provides the migrans with care in two universities and a church, warned that the hunger-striking migrants could die within days, adding that many of them had lost hope and are dealing with suicidal thoughts.
Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo has refused to make any exceptions in immigration and asylum procedures for the strikers. Several political parties in Belgium have urged him to intervene, along with the leaders of the Socialist and Green parties. Two out of seven members of the governing coalition warned that they "will leave the government within the hour if anybody dies."
Toward the end of last month, Secretary of State for Asylum and Migration Sammy Mahdi stated that his country's government will not agree to regularize the status of 150,000 undocumented migrants, but is ready to hold talks with the hunger strikers about their suffering.
