These organisations and churches have highlighted the increasingly desperate situation faced by men and women trying to enter the EU. They stated that killing unarmed persons at EU borders is a deplorable action and judicial investigations must assess the events at Ceuta and Melilla.

The six organisations are all working in the field of migration and asylum and include; Caritas Europa, the Churches Commission for Migrants in Europe, the Commission of the Bishops' Conferences of the European Community, the International Catholic Migration Commission, the Jesuit Refugee Service -- Europe, and the Quaker Council for European Affairs.

The letter pointed out that the EU has a duty to observe the dignity towards the human being and assure that the protection of human rights is respected in all their dealing in this area. It also stated that human beings entering the EU through irregular means should not be criminalised, especially when considering that some may qualify for refugee status.

On this subject, the Holy See had already expressed its concerns in an address to the UN on Defence of Refugees. Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Holy See's permanent observer to the UN in Geneva, in a speech delivered before the Executive committee of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees had said that the international community should find a better solution to this challenge.

The Holy See pointed out that budgetary resources in camps has been inadequate for some years forcing food rationing which provoked dangerous coping mechanisms for survival including, children stunted in their growth, risk of trading sex for food and forced repatriation to a still unsafe environment.

In his speech, Archibishop Tomasi said that stigmatising asylum seekers and refugees due to their detained living as criminals is dangerous and dehumanising. Thus he said a distinction should be made between detention, arbitrary detention and administrative detention since this lack of distinction creates an image that feeds racist and xenophobic behaviour which is a deterrent to integration.

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