Unicef sounds alarm as record numbers of children cross dangerous Darién Gap

Children risking lives to migrate across Latin America and Caribbean, with aid groups warning they cannot cope

Record numbers of children are migrating across Latin America and the Caribbean with more than 60,000 children risking life and limb to cross the treacherous Darién Gap jungle pass this year, according to a new Unicef report.

Sounding the alarm over the rising number of youngsters on the move, the UN’s children’s agency said at least 92 migrant children had died or gone missing last year – more than any other year since 2014.

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Texas ordered to remove buoys meant to block migrants from Rio Grande River

Preliminary order issued by judge David Ezra requires the floaters to be relocated to an embankment on the state side of the river

A US judge ordered Texas to move a line of floating buoys that were placed in the middle of the Rio Grande to block migrants from crossing the US-Mexico border. The ruling is a tentative win for the Biden administration after the Department of Justice (DoJ) sued the state.

The federal judge David Ezra on Wednesday issued a preliminary injunction in the state capital of Austin that requires Texas to relocate the controversial buoys, currently near the city of Eagle Pass, to an embankment on the Texas side of the river.

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Afghan refugee wrongly jailed in Greece wins thousands in compensation

Akif Rasuli spent more than two years behind bars after being accused of people smuggling

A Greek court has awarded thousands of euros in compensation to an Afghan refugee who spent more than two years in prison after being wrongfully accused of people smuggling, in a rare step hailed by campaigners.

A three-member appeal court sitting on the Aegean island of Lesbos ruled that Akif Rasuli had not only been unjustly jailed, but should be recompensed for the ordeal he had been made to endure.

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‘We can’t keep up’: Panama-Colombia border sees record number of migrants

In August, 50,000 people fleeing northward were met with long lines for medical attention, a lack of water and sleeping spaces

Medical non-governmental organizations (NGOs) attending to injured and sick migrants crossing the Darién Gap are increasingly unable to manage the record number of people taking the perilous journey, according to Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and the United Nation high commissioner for human rights.

In August 50,000 people took the week-long trek through the dense jungle connecting Colombia and Panama, outstretching the capacity of MSF’s staff at medical treatment posts on the Panamanian border.

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Syrian refugee deported from Greece loses case against EU border agency

Ruling against man who claimed family were ‘pushback’ victims seen as blow to efforts to make Frontex accountable

A Syrian refugee has lost a landmark case against the EU’s border protection agency, Frontex, after he and his family were forcibly deported from Greece before his asylum application was processed.

The ruling is seen as a major blow to efforts to make the operations of Frontex in Greece and other countries more transparent and accountable to the member states who employ them.

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Highest daily number of Channel small-boat crossings for 2023 recorded

More than 800 people made the journey on Saturday, bringing the total for the year so far to almost 21,000

More than 800 people crossed the Channel in small boats on Saturday, the highest number on a single day so far this year.

The latest provisional government data put the figure at 872 people in 15 vessels, suggesting an average of about 58 people in each one.

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Netanyahu says Eritreans involved in Tel Aviv clashes should be deported

Israeli PM also orders plan to remove all African asylum seekers after protests by rival groups of Eritreans

The Israeli prime minister has said he wants Eritreans involved in a violent clash in Tel Aviv to be deported immediately and has ordered a plan to remove all of the country’s African asylum seekers.

The remarks on Sunday followed bloody protests by rival groups of Eritreans in south Tel Aviv the day before that left dozens of people injured. Eritreans, supporters and opponents of Eritrea’s government, faced off with construction lumber, pieces of metal and rocks, smashing shop windows and police cars. Israeli police in riot gear fired teargas, stun grenades and live rounds while officers on horseback tried to control the protesters.

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Germany says it ended training of Saudi border forces after abuses reported

Statement comes amid concern about allegations Saudi forces have killed hundreds of migrants

Germany ended a training programme for Saudi border forces, who have been implicated in the mass killing of migrants at the country’s border with Yemen, after it was alerted to reports of “possible massive human rights violations”, the German interior ministry has said.

In a statement to the Guardian, the ministry said training undertaken by the federal police service for the Saudi border force had been “discontinued after reports of possible massive human rights violations became known and, as a precaution, are no longer included in the current training programme [for Saudi security forces]”.

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Chinese migrants believe Australian media fuels hostility towards them, study shows

Reports about China’s ‘influence’ made public more suspicious of Chinese-Australian communities, according to 70% of respondents to UTS survey

First-generation migrants from China believe Australian media reporting has fuelled unfriendly or suspicious attitudes towards them, new research shows.

The report, published by the University of Technology Sydney, explores the hopes and fears of members of Chinese Australian communities, including a parent whose child came home from school asking: “Mum, is China going to invade us?”

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Video shows woman lying dead on floor of migration detention centre in Libya

Footage provides latest shocking glimpse of conditions endured by refugees in north African country

Footage has emerged showing a woman lying dead on the floor of a migration detention centre in Libya in the latest shocking glimpse of the conditions endured by refugees in the north African country.

The clip, believed to have been filmed two weeks ago and shared with the Guardian by a group who arrived in Tunisia from Libya, shows a room inside the Abu Salim detention centre in Tripoli.

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Asylum seekers in Greece ‘facing two great injustices of our time’

Amnesty links wildfires and lack of legal migration routes to deaths of 19 people believed to be asylum seekers

Refugees and migrants in Greece are facing off against the “two great injustices of our times”, Amnesty International has said, as it linked wildfires and scant access to legal migration routes to the deaths of 19 people believed to be asylum seekers.

As wildfires continue to rage across swathes of Greece, authorities in the country said they were working to identify the charred remains of 18 people found this week in the dense forests that straddle the country’s north-eastern border with Turkey.

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Niger observers link coup to president’s support for EU migration policies

Experts say army received bribes from people smuggling until 2015 law associated with Mohamed Bazoum

Observers have linked Mohamed Bazoum’s support for European Union policies aimed at stifling migration routes through north Africa to his ousting as president of Niger last month.

Army officers toppled Bazoum on 26 July, as Niger became the fourth west African country since 2020 to have a coup, following Burkina Faso, Guinea and Mali.

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‘Inhumane’: judge hears arguments about anti-migrant buoys in Rio Grande

Court to decide whether to remove them as Greg Abbott and other Republican governors defend militarization of border with Mexico

A federal judge heard arguments on Tuesday about whether state authorities should remove huge buoys installed to stop migrants crossing the river that divides Texas from Mexico.

The court hearing in Austin came a day after Texas’s governor, Greg Abbott, and a group of hardline Republican governors gathered on the riverbank to defend local militarization of the US-Mexico border – while also acknowledging that the 1,000ft (305-meter) floating barrier had been adjusted after complaints that it had mostly drifted into Mexican territory.

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Starmer challenges Sunak to force Nadine Dorries out of Commons as Tory website explains how it could happen – as it happened

Article says Commons could bypass the parliamentary standards machinery after Labour leader says MP should be forced out. This live blog is closed

Starmer says there is a massive mismatch between what the government is saying about how things are going well with the economy, and the lived experience of people.

O’Brien suggests the two teenagers Starmer met today would have been happier if Starmer was still committed to getting rid of tuition fees.

I do think the current scheme is unfair and ineffective and that is why we will change it, so the current scheme will be changed by the incoming Labour government and we will set out our plans.

I am not going to pretend that there isn’t huge damage to the economy and that has meant that some of the things that an incoming Labour government would want to do we are not going to be able to do in the way we would want in the way that we would want.

We are working up our proposals on that and I will fully come back and talk them through when we got them.

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Sunak suggests plan to stop small boats won’t fully succeed before general election but claims it is working – politics live updates

Prime minister says he is ‘not complacent’ and figures showing fall in crossings compared with 2022 show his approach is working

Rishi Sunak and Gillian Keegan, the education secretary, were both given a chance to show off their painting skills when they visited a nursery in Harrogate this morning. According to PA Media, they were both painting bees. Keegan’s bee would merit a gold star. Sunak’s looks more like a parrot with a squint.

In his pooled TV interview, Rishi Sunak also stressed the government’s commitment to extending access to free childcare. He said:

It is really important to me that young families have access to high quality affordably childcare. That is why the government is expanding its offer of free childcare.

Currently working families can access 30 hours of free childcare for three and four-year-olds. As part of our big reforms we are extending that all the way down to little ones as young as nine months.

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‘Fired on like rain’: Saudi border guards accused of mass killings of Ethiopians

Report by Human Rights Watch details alleged attacks using explosive weapons and small arms on Saudi Arabia-Yemen border

Saudi border guards have been accused of killing hundreds of Ethiopians using small arms and explosive weapons in a targeted campaign that rights advocates suggest may amount to a crime against humanity.

The shocking claims are made in a detailed investigation by Human Rights Watch, which interviewed dozens of Ethiopian people who said they were attacked by border guards while they tried to cross into Saudi Arabia from Yemen.

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Government’s ‘small boats week’ backfires as Labour lead on immigration rises

Tory attempt to capitalise on Channel crossings draws attention to immigration and strengthens opposition lead on issue

Government attempts to make capital out of the issue of Channel crossings in a special “small boats week” appear to have backfired with the public, according to the latest Opinium poll for the Observer.

“Small boats week”, earlier this month, was dogged by a series of disasters, including figures showing record numbers of crossings; the evacuation, due to a health scare, of the Bibby Stockholm barge used to house migrants, and the deaths of at least six people when a small boat capsized and sank in the Channel.

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Four arrested in France after deaths of six men in Channel crossing

At least two of detained Iraqis and Sudanese suspected to have links to human trafficking networks

Four people have been arrested in France after the deaths of six men whose boat capsized while crossing the Channel.

French judges are considering charges including involuntary manslaughter against the Iraqi and Sudanese suspects, according to reports.

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Cape Verde boat disaster: vessel drifted for month after alarm raised, says NGO

Walking Borders said it told authorities in four countries on 20 July about vessel with more than 100 asylum seekers onboard

A Spanish NGO alerted authorities from four countries on 20 July about a boat carrying an estimated 130 asylum seekers that was found earlier this week with just 38 survivors and the bodies of seven dead people on board.

Relatives of those onboard said the large fishing vessel had left Fass Boye, a seaside town in Senegal on 10 July, and was heading for Spain’s Canary Islands. The boat was spotted on Monday about 150 nautical miles (277km ) north of the Cape Verdean island of Sal.

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At least 63 people feared dead after boat found off Cape Verde

Fishing vessel with 100 asylum seekers was travelling from Senegal to Spain’s Canary Islands

More than 60 people are believed to have died after the boat they were travelling on from Senegal was found off Cape Verde, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Wednesday.

At least 63 asylum seekers are thought to have died, while the 38 survivors include four children between the ages of 12 and 16, an IOM spokesperson told AFP.

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