Category Archives: Migration

Housing asylum seekers on barge may only save £10 a person daily, report says

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NGOs behind report suggest minimal savings for Home Office if Bibby Stockholm barge used in place of £5.6m-a-day hotels

Controversial plans to house asylum seekers on a barge to reduce reliance on expensive hotels will save less than £10 a person a day, according to a report.

The report, Bibby Stockholm – At What Cost? from the NGOs Reclaim The Seas and One Life To Live, provides the first detailed estimated costings of the Bibby Stockholm, the barge the Home Office is planning to use in Dorset to accommodate asylum seekers.

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Tory rebels offered concessions on anti-asylum legislation

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Fearing defeats, government expected to limit plans to detain children and pregnant women arriving on small boats

Ministers are offering rebel Conservative MPs concessions on key anti-asylum legislation amid growing concern it could face defeats in the Commons.

The government is expected to limit plans to detain children and pregnant women who arrive in the UK by small boats and drop some of the retrospective applications of the illegal migration bill’s measures, the Guardian understands.

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Greek shipwreck: hi-tech investigation suggests coastguard responsible for sinking

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Research into loss of trawler with hundreds of deaths strongly contradicts official accounts – while finding a failure to mobilise help and evidence that survivor statements were tampered with

Attempts by the Greek coastguard to tow a fishing trawler carrying hundreds of migrants may have caused the vessel to sink, according to a new investigation by the Guardian and media partners that has raised further questions about the incident, which left an estimated 500 people missing

The trawler carrying migrants from Libya to Italy sank off the coast of Greece on 14 June. There were 104 survivors.

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Spanish police arrest 15 after long investigation into alleged people-smuggling gang

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Operation allegedly involved moving people from Syria to Spain on a circuitous route via Sudan and north Africa

Spanish police have broken up what they say is an organised criminal gang involved in a highly unusual people-smuggling operation involving the moving of migrants from Syria to Spain on an 8,000km trip via Sudan.

A year-long investigation, which was coordinated by Europol and involved dozens of police officers from France, Norway and Germany, uncovered a network of alleged people-smuggling cells across north Africa and northern Europe as well as the main nerve centre of the gang in southern Spain.

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Ministers urged to shelve illegal migration bill until supreme court ruling after 11 defeats in Lords – UK politics live

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Purpose of the bill is now ‘dead’, says crossbench peer Alex Carlile after yesterday’s vote in House of Lords

Rishi Sunak has posted a message on Twitter saying that he looks forward to continuing working with Jens Stoltenberg, who has had his term as Nato’s secretary general extended.

According to the Sun’s Harry Cole, at cabinet Sunak praised Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, as the only other credible candidate for the job who was not a former prime minister. Stoltenberg is a former Norwegian PM.

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Defeats for small boats bill in the Lords as Channel crossings set new record

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Peers voted against government-proposed measures on detention and deportation of asylum seekers

The government’s small boats bill has suffered a series of defeats in the House of Lords, as Channel crossings in June by people seeking asylum set a new record.

Peers voted on Monday to limit the time that children and pregnant women who claim asylum after arriving by irregular means can be detained, and backed preventing LGBTQ+ people from being deported to a country where they would have a well-founded fear of persecution.

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Greek shipwreck does little to dissuade Pakistanis leaving for Europe

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Officials in Punjab say they can’t to stop the exodus, as families tell of loved ones lost on the perilous route via Africa and the Mediterranean

In one of the busiest hubs for trafficking in Pakistan, would-be migrants are continuing to leave for Europe despite hundreds of people drowning after a trawler sank off the Greek coast last month, the Guardian has found.

In the past week, at least two more people from the district of Mandi Bahauddin, in eastern Pakistan, have left with the help of traffickers. The continued migration comes as families mourn loved ones believed to be on the Greek shipwreck, most of whose passengers were from Pakistan, and those missing after previous forlorn attempts to reach Europe.

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German travel agency criticized for tour of Panama’s deadly jungle migrant zone

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Travel startup says it doesn’t ‘holiday where people suffer’ but offers trek in Darién Gap known for dangerous migration routes

“We go where no one goes,” is Wandermut’s tagline, but one of the German tour agency’s packages has left people asking whether some places are better left unexplored.

The travel startup’s 10-day Panama Jungle Tour has been criticised across Latin America in recent weeks for offering tour packages in a region which is home to one of the world’s most dangerous migration routes.

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EU looks to Egypt partnership to tackle people-smuggling networks

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Leaders already exploring plans with other African nations to tackle root causes of migration-related deaths

The EU may seek a new wide-ranging partnership with Egypt including measures to stem irregular migration and break criminal people-smuggling networks.

EU leaders are already exploring plans beyond a looming €1bn (£860m) deal with Tunisia to other countries in Africa as part of a wider bid to tackle the root causes of migration-related deaths and disappearances.

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PMQs: Rishi Sunak faces questions from Keir Starmer over house building targets and mortgage support – UK politics live

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Labour leader presses prime minister to admit his party will not meet promised targets over house building

PMQs is coming up soon.

Here is the list of MPs down to ask a question.

We remain seriously concerned about the potential implications of the illegal migration bill on human rights and the safety of individuals.

Careful consideration should continue to be given to the impact of the bill on different groups with protected characteristics – including children, pregnant women, disabled people, torture survivors, and victims of trafficking.

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EU accused of whitewashing Tunisian regime in bid to stem migration

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Bloc is set to give country £860m despite rapid erosion of democracy since President Kais Saied took power in 2021

The children of prominent jailed Tunisian judges and politicians have accused the European Union of betraying its values by whitewashing the regime of President Kais Saied in the vain hope that he can stem the flow of migrants to Europe.

The EU is set to provide Tunisia with €1bn (£860m) in aid despite the obliteration of democracy in the country over the past two years.

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UK urged to speed evacuation of hundreds of British children in Sudan

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Merseyside charity worker whose children are stuck in Khartoum says Foreign Office delays have trapped many in conflict zone

A British charity worker has called on the government to help evacuate his children from Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, stressing that hundreds of people with the right to reside in the UK remain stuck in the conflict zone.

Alhussein Ahmed, 32, who works for the Merseyside Refugee Support Network in Liverpool, is concerned that the Foreign Office should be doing more to assist hundreds of people who have UK residency rights who remain stuck in Sudan.

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Disbelief and anger among Greek shipwreck victims’ relatives as millions spent on Titan rescue effort

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Disparity between rescue responses has sparked debate in Pakistan about double standards

Anees Majeed, who lost five relatives in the boat that sank off Greece on 14 June, watched in disbelief and growing anger as a frantic, multimillion-dollar rescue effort played out for five other men lost at sea last week.

Like thousands of others across Pakistan, Majeed, a law student from Pakistan-administered Kashmir, grieved at funeral prayers without a body to bury. At least 350 Pakistani citizens were on the overcrowded craft, the interior minister, Rana Sanaullah, confirmed on Friday.

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37 people missing after boat capsizes between Tunisia and Lampedusa

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Boat capsized in strong winds with most passengers feared dead, according to four survivors cited by migrants’ organisation

Thirty-seven people are missing after their boat capsized between Tunisia and the Italian island of Lampedusa, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Friday, citing an account by four survivors of the shipwreck.

The UN agency said the survivors, all from sub-Saharan Africa, arrived on Lampedusa late on Thursday, having been rescued from the shipwreck by another vessel.

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Spanish investigation launched into fatal boat rescue delay

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Spanish and Moroccan authorities blamed for 12-hour delay after up to 60 people seen stranded en route to Canary Islands

Spain’s public ombudsman has begun an investigation into why as many as 60 people stranded on an inflatable boat bound for the Canary Islands had to wait more than 12 hours to be rescued, leading to the loss of at least 35 lives, among them a child.

Passengers on the boat – which got into difficulties off the coast of Western Sahara on Tuesday afternoon – appealed for help, but a Moroccan rescue boat did not appear until the following day, when it picked up 24 people.

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More than 160 people rescued from boats near Canary Islands

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Rescues come as refugee charities say more than 30 people may have died after dinghy sank on same route this week

Emergency services say 168 people have been rescued near Spain’s Canary Islands, one day after refugee charities said they feared more than 30 people had died after their inflatable dinghy sank on the same route.

The Canary Islands, off the coast of west Africa, have become the main destination for refugees and migrants trying to reach Spain, with a much smaller number also seeking to cross the Mediterranean Sea to the Spanish mainland. Summer is the busiest period for all attempted crossings.

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At least 35 people feared dead after dinghy sinks en route to Canary Islands

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Child among the dead and 24 people rescued in Moroccan-led operation, say Spanish maritime sources

At least 35 people are feared to have drowned after an inflatable boat carrying up to 60 migrants and refugees sank while en route to the Canary Islands early on Wednesday morning.

The Spanish migration NGO Caminando Fronteras (Walking Borders) said 60 people were on the boat, of whom 39 were missing. Another migration NGO, Alarm Phone, put the number of people onboard at 59 and said 35 were missing.

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‘He suffered’: Pakistani relatives mourn sons on Greek shipwreck

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Poverty drove young men from small Kashmir town to board ill-fated fishing trawler, say families

The last time Mohammed Yousaf talked to his son, Sajid Yousaf, on 8 June, the son was waiting anxiously in Libya for smugglers to pack him and hundreds of others on to a boat bound for the other side of the Mediterranean.

Six days later, the overcrowded fishing trawler sank off the coast of Greece. Sajid, 28, a shopkeeper and father of two from the small town of Khuiratta in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, is among the hundreds missing, presumed dead.

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Nine due in Greek court over shipwreck as Pakistan holds day of mourning

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Suspected people smugglers to appear in court in Kalamata, as police in Kashmir announce 10 arrests

Nine suspected people smugglers are to appear before a Greek court accused of piloting the fishing trawler that sank off the coast of Greece last week leaving hundreds missing and presumed dead in one of the Mediterranean’s worst boat disasters.

Greek authorities have said 78 dead and 104 survivors – mostly from Syria, Afghanistan, Egypt and Pakistan – were brought ashore after the overcrowded boat sank about 50 miles (80km) off the southern Greek town of Pylos early on Wednesday, days after it set sail from Tobruk in Libya heading towards Italy.

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Canada’s supreme court upholds pact with US restricting asylum claims

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Safe Third Country Agreement does not infringe refugee claimants’ rights to liberty and security of the person, court rules

Canada’s top court has ruled that an agreement with the United States aiming to control the flow of refugees across the shared border is constitutional, ending a lengthy legal challenge by advocacy groups who argue the deal violates the rights of asylum seekers.

In a unanimous judgment released on Friday morning, the supreme court found the controversial Safe Third Country Agreement did not infringe refugee claimants’ rights to liberty and security of the person.

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