When borders in the North are closing, refugees and migrants are forced out on more and more perilous journeys on their way to a safe haven. As of October 6 2019, almost 18990 people are reported missing, drowned, in the Mediterranean, since 2014. 10 000 have died on the US-Mexico border in the last 10 years. At the same time, thousands of lives have been saved by voluntary, humanitarian and human rights’ workers. 

In this seminar we pay tribute to the people who risk their own freedom to save lives, we discuss why and how saving lives has become a crime and if this development is part of a protectionist, nationalistic and even racist agenda.