Category Archives: Migration

Allegations of worker exploitation at ‘world’s greatest show’ in Dubai

Posted on by

Migrant workers employed at Expo 2020 allege confiscated passports, racial discrimination and withheld wages

Security guards, cleaners and hospitality staff at Dubai’s Expo 2020 in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are allegedly working in highly abusive conditions that may amount to forced labour, according to a human rights group.

Migrant workers employed at the international fair in the UAE – taking place now after being delayed by Covid – allege they have been forced to pay illegal recruitment fees, suffered racial discrimination and had wages withheld and passports confiscated, said the report by Equidem.

Continue reading...

Fruit pickers lured to Portugal by the dream of a ‘raspberry passport’

Posted on by

Farm workers from south Asia describe exploitative conditions at the heart of Europe’s soft fruits industry

Three days after Sagar* arrived as a worker in Portugal from Nepal, he began to worry he had made a terrible mistake. “I had expectations to get good work, good money,” he says. “But the reality was different.”

The only job Sagar, 21, could find was on one of the country’s berry farms in Odemira, a rural region on the south-west coast. Earning less than the legal minimum wage to work 16-hour days in 40C heat, he knows he is being exploited. But quitting could jeopardise his residency application – and that’s a risk he cannot afford to take.

Continue reading...

‘The day I left was the saddest of my life’: EU nationals on the pain of leaving UK

Posted on by

They miss the trees, the curry, the friends … but most of all, they miss feeling the UK was somewhere they could call home

Everyone misses something. For some, it’s quite specific: PG Tips, Branston pickle, proper curry. For many, it’s more intangible: the atmosphere of an English pub; that greenness, everywhere; tolerance; and British openness.

Then they pause. Actually, many formerly British-resident EU nationals say, what they miss is an idea. Or, to be precise, the idea of Britain they had before 24 June 2016: all of them remember, in painful, pin-sharp detail, how they felt, and what they did, the morning after.

Continue reading...

Four more bodies found off Florida coast from capsized boat

Posted on by

Discovery brings total to five, but search for survivors will be suspended if new discoveries are not made, says US coast guard

The US coast guard said it would call off the search for survivors at sunset on Thursday if no new discoveries were made following a boat capsizing off the Florida coast at the weekend with 40 people on board.

Four more bodies had been discovered, bringing the total to five, Capt Jo-Ann Burdian, commander of the coast guard’s Miami sector, said in a press conference on Thursday.

Continue reading...

Poland starts building wall through protected forest at Belarus border

Posted on by

Barrier will stretch for almost half the length of the border and cost 10 times migration department’s budget

Poland has started building a wall along its frontier with Belarus aimed at preventing asylum seekers from entering the country, which cuts through a protected forest and Unesco world heritage site.

The Polish border guard said the barrier would measure 186km (115 miles), almost half the length of the border shared by the two countries, reach up to 5.5 metres (18ft) and cost €353m (£293m). It will be equipped with motion detectors and thermal cameras.

Continue reading...

Workers paid less than minimum wage to pick berries destined for UK supermarkets

Posted on by

Exclusive: Workers in Portugal picking berries ending up on the shelves of Marks & Spencer, Waitrose and Tesco allege exploitative conditions

  • Photographs by Francesco Brembati for the Guardian

Farm workers in Portugal appear to have been working illegally long hours picking berries destined for Marks & Spencer, Tesco and Waitrose for less than the minimum wage, according to a Guardian investigation.

Speaking anonymously, for fear of retribution from their employers, workers claimed the hours listed on their payslips were often fewer than the hours they had actually worked.

Continue reading...

Africa’s health boss seeks to tempt expat medics to come back home

Posted on by

Head of the continent’s disease control centre says doctors and nurses are needed to bolster the local pandemic response

During the pandemic, the UK and other rich nations have relied on African doctors and nurses to shore up their health services.

Now the continent’s chief health leader is hoping to put the brain drain into reverse with a plan to persuade African expats to return.

Continue reading...

From Afghanistan to Italy: a teenage ski champion flees the Taliban – in pictures

Posted on by

Until August last year, 18-year-old Nazira Khairzad lived a carefree existence with her family in the foothills of the Bamyan mountains. She loves sport and was a champion skier, but when the Taliban took over she decided to flee, leaving her old life behind. Photojournalist Rick Findler documented her attempts to settle into a new life

Continue reading...

Guatemala’s economy buoyed by record $15bn sent home from workers overseas

Posted on by

Critics accuse the country’s government of doing nothing to stop the ‘escape valve’ of migration as it covers up their lack of spending

The amount of money Guatemalans living abroad send home to their families reached record levels in 2021. Remittances rose to more than $15bn (£11bn) in 2021, an increase of 35% on the previous year.

The unprecedented rise prompted experts to question the political will to tackle the migration crisis when remittances from the US contribute so much to the Guatemalan economy.

Continue reading...

Far-right French presidential candidate found guilty of racist hate speech

Posted on by

Éric Zemmour drew widespread outrage in September 2020 after a tirade against child migrants

A French court has found the far-right presidential candidate Éric Zemmour guilty of racist hate speech for a tirade against unaccompanied child migrants.

Zemmour drew widespread outrage in September 2020 when he told the CNews channel that child migrants were “thieves, killers, they’re rapists. That’s all they are. We should send them back.”

Continue reading...

World’s poorest bear brunt of climate crisis: 10 underreported emergencies

Posted on by

Care International report highlights ‘deep injustice’ neglected by world’s media, as extreme weather along with Covid wipes out decades of progress

From Afghanistan to Ethiopia, about 235 million people worldwide needed assistance in 2021. But while some crises received global attention, others are lesser known.

Humanitarian organisation Care International has published its annual report of the 10 countries that had the least attention in online articles in five languages around the world in 2021, despite each having at least 1 million people affected by conflict or climate disasters.

Continue reading...

France to push for EU-wide UK migration treaty over Channel crossings

Posted on by

French government wants whole bloc to act despite warnings other member states have no appetite

France will press the EU to negotiate an asylum and migration treaty with the UK in an attempt to deter people from making the dangerous Channel crossing.

The French government, which last week took up the six-month rotating presidency of the EU council of ministers, wants the whole bloc to act, despite warnings that other member states have no appetite for a migration treaty with Britain.

Continue reading...

Desmond Tutu’s funeral and Kazakhstan clashes: human rights this fortnight – in pictures

Posted on by

A roundup of the coverage of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Mexico to Hong Kong

Continue reading...

Tigrayans deported by Saudis ‘forcibly disappeared’ in Ethiopia – rights group

Posted on by

Thousands of Tigrayan migrants abused and deported from Saudi Arabia are forcibly detained in Ethiopia, Human Rights Watch says


Thousands of Tigrayans are being deported from Saudi Arabia and held in secret detention sites in Ethiopia, according to Human Rights Watch.

In a new report, the international rights organisation says it has identified two detention sites where thousands of people from the war-torn Tigray region of Ethiopia are being mistreated and forcibly disappeared. The sites, identified via satellite imagery, videos and witness accounts, in the towns of Semera and Shone are most likely used to detain Tigrayan deportees, HRW said.

Continue reading...

Calls for safe routes to UK as arrivals by small boat treble in a year

Posted on by

Refugee charities want change of approach from government after 28,300 people crossed Channel in 2021

Refugee charities are urging the government to open safe routes or risk a new wave of fatalities in the Channel after the number of people who travelled to the UK by small boats trebled last year.

Data released on Tuesday shows that more than 28,300 people crossed the Channel in 2021, three times the number for 2020. The record number came despite tens of millions of pounds being spent by the home secretary, Priti Patel, on new measures to discourage the journeys.

Continue reading...

‘They lost almost everything’: photographing the terror and joy of refugees in DRC

Posted on by

Alexis Huguet’s image of this twin girl, born as her mother fled into Congo, captures the fragility of life in the Central African Republic

The picture is a joyful one. Laure, a midwife at a health facility in Ndu, a village in the Democratic Republic of Congo, holds a healthy newborn girl. The baby’s mother, Ester, was at the health centre for a postnatal appointment after giving birth to twin daughters.

A couple of weeks earlier, when she was heavily pregnant and due to go into labour at any moment, Ester was forced to leave her home in Bangassou, on the other side of a river, in the neighbouring Central African Republic.

Continue reading...

Trapped at Europe’s door: inside Belarus’s makeshift asylum dormitory

Posted on by

About 1,000 people, mostly Kurds, are waiting at a converted customs centre in Bruzgi for the chance to cross into EU

The giant warehouse towers over the Belarus countryside, less than a mile from the Polish border. In this 10,000 sq metre space patrolled by dozens of armed soldiers, 1,000 asylum seekers are crammed among countless industrial shelving units, held up on their way to Europe in the midst of a frigid winter.

“We’re trapped in this building,” says Alima Skandar, 40. “We don’t want to go back to Iraq and we can’t cross the border. Please, help us.”

Continue reading...

‘Good anti-sinking capacity, lifejacket optional’: journey of a ‘refugee boat’

Posted on by

From a factory in China to an English beach, rubber dinghies are acquired by people-smugglers to transport desperate people


Against the backdrop of Dunkirk’s busy port with its cranes and smoke, a collapsed, grey rubber dinghy lies on the shore, abandoned and washed in by the tide.

It is one of the many haunting signs of the thousands of desperate people who have attempted to cross the Channel from northern France.

Continue reading...

Border Force picks up 67 people after Christmas Day attempt to cross Channel

Posted on by

Agents step in after incident involving two small boats in early hours of morning

UK authorities have rescued 67 people who were attempting to cross the Channel on Christmas Day.

Border Force agents took a group of people to Dover in Kent in the early hours of Saturday, after an incident involving two small boats.

Continue reading...

At least 16 dead after third migrant boat in three days sinks in Greek waters

Posted on by

People still missing despite major rescue effort as smugglers switch to more perilous route from Turkey

At least 16 people have died after a migrant boat capsized in the Aegean Sea late Friday, bringing to at least 30 the combined death toll from three accidents in as many days involving migrant boats in Greek waters.

The sinkings came as smugglers increasingly favour a perilous route from Turkey to Italy, which avoids Greece’s heavily patrolled eastern Aegean islands that for years were at the forefront of the country’s migration crisis.

Continue reading...