On World Refugee Day, HuBB created a memorial near Marquês de Pombal in Lisbon, where the names of over 66,000 people who died from 1993 to the present were read under the theme “We won’t forget you.”
With the backdrop of the Lisbon Book Fair taking place at Parque Eduardo XVII and with the event scheduled for 7:30 p.m., eight HuBB members laid dozens of sheets on the ground with the names of all the victims and inflated a boat surrounded by signs reading “No human is illegal” and “Protect people not borders.”
Margarida Wolf, a doctor and member of HuBB, stated that the collective chose the Book Fair because it attracts people “interested in learning more about everything, about culture, about the world, and about art” and, above all, to “remember this group of people, which is still quite large.”
“We would like people, governments, and politicians to start seeing the people who migrate and embark on rubber boats without direction and without assurance of reaching the other side. These are people in a situation of despair, who deserve, like us, another opportunity and currently do not have safe ways, safe routes to reach Europe or the places they intend to reach,” she added.
Using a speaker and a microphone, HuBB members took turns reading the over 66,000 names of victims, the reasons for their deaths, and the places they died.
Wolf also called for international and Portuguese governments to be “more transparent regarding the reception of these migrants and the detention centers.”
“In Portugal, there are many, and now we have plans to build two more. No one knows anything about what goes on inside these detention centers. We would prefer they didn’t exist, but if they must, they should at least ensure minimal access to the outside world, to lawyers, to translators, to medical care, which they currently lack,” she added.
Passersby curiously walked over the sheets with names, some stepping on them, while many others stopped to listen and photograph the sheets with their mobile phones, accessing through a ‘QR-code’ the UNITED page, a network against nationalism, racism, and fascism supporting migrants and refugees, where they could read the names of those who died between 1993 and June 17, 2025, crossing to Europe.
Several people joined the collective, deliberately or by chance, to pay tribute and protest against European countries’ and the European Union’s policies regarding migrants and refugees.
Ana Mendes, a graphic designer who is part of the collective, stated she has been involved with immigration issues since 2015 and, after volunteering with migrants in Bulgaria, decided to join HuBB.
This HuBB member recalled that during her volunteer work, she witnessed a European immigration policy based on “detention camps with no conditions, where people end up being confined for months on end, with no date of release, unable to leave, unable to live, simply because they crossed a border.”
José Pina, a security guard, joined the vigil, reciting poetry he had written, because he believes “it is very important, in this moment, for society to be in solidarity with these people, who are people, human beings.”
The protester noted that he knows of a group of immigrants at Cozinha Migrante dos Anjos, an organization that brings together immigrants of various nationalities in Portugal, who are reportedly going to be expelled from Portugal.
“The government has now created a law that will lead to the expulsion of those individuals who have been here for more than a year. Many are already working, have social security taxpayer numbers, and these citizens have 20 days to leave the country,” José Pina said, adding that “the government and AIMA are refusing residence authorization” to these immigrants.
For José Pina, Portugal has responsibilities towards refugees because “there is a refugee status that must be respected” and the people who have moved to the country “cannot be abandoned.”
HuBB, based in Porto and Lisbon, aims to fight against the inhumane and illegal treatment of migrants and refugees and to advocate for human rights.
