On 6 September 2018, the Secretary General’s Special Representative on migration and refugees, Ambassador Tomáš Boček, published a report on the situation of migrants and refugees in Spain. ”Every person arriving in Spain, including those jumping the border fences in Melilla and Ceuta, should be protected against refoulement and collective expulsions with a real possibility to have access to an effective and fair asylum procedure”, he said. While the Special Representative praised the reception conditions for refugees and asylum-seekers in mainland Spain and the support offered by the authorities to learning Spanish language, he pointed out that the reception facilities in Melilla and Ceuta, including those for unaccompanied children, were overcrowded. Dozens of unaccompanied children in Melilla and Ceuta have fallen out of the protection system, living in the streets and trying to get on board of ferries heading to mainland. The Special Representative also stressed the need to reduce the backlog of asylum applications and tackle delays in asylum procedures.

This month the Office of the Special Representative has launched a new call for examples of good or promising practices of family reunification. Selected examples will be published in a handbook on standards to restore family links and reunify families. The deadline for submissions is 30 October 2018. For more information, please see the call for good practices. This is the second one after in July the Office launched a call for examples of good practices on child-friendly procedures in the migration context. The aim is to draft a compilation of those practices to be shared among the Council of Europe member states in order to improve the situation of migrant and refugee children. The deadline for submissions of the child-friendly procedures is 30 September 2018. Both calls are related to activities under the Council of Europe Action plan on protecting refugee and migrant children in Europe (2017-2019) and the submissions should be sent to [email protected].

From 24 to 27 July 2018, the Special Representative visited Bosnia and Herzegovina. He held meetings with the government officials and representatives of relevant international organisations to discuss the current migratory challenges Bosnia and Herzegovina is facing as a Council of Europe member state, in view of the increasing arrivals this year. He also attended the Council of Europe Development Bank’s (CEB) signature ceremony of a grant agreement with IOM. The CEB will support Bosnia and Herzegovina authorities with EUR 1 million in setting up a reception/transit facility for up-to 400 persons in Ušivak, near Sarajevo. The grant will contribute to ensuring the basic needs and human rights of migrants and refugees currently present in Bosnia and Herzegovina.