Natacha Bouchart tells PM sending Navy ships into French waters is ‘a declaration of maritime war’
The mayor of the French port city of Calais has told Boris Johnson to “calm down” and change strategy in dealing with migrants crossing from France.
“I consider Boris Johnson’s pronouncements to be a provocation,” said Natacha Bouchart, mayor of the town that is a main embarkation point for the small, overcrowded migrant boats seeking to cross the Channel this summer.
Continue reading...Home Office says 14 people were flown out, while 19 of those due to be removed had their tickets deferred
A charter flight to remove asylum seekers who recently arrived in the UK on small boats took off on Wednesday morning carrying 14 people, the Home Office said, despite last-minute high court actions and other interventions just hours before takeoff.
Nineteen people due to fly did not board the plane. The Home Office said 14 people were placed on the charter flight destined for France and Germany.
Continue reading...Experts offer other options as UK government seeks to reduce numbers crossing in boats
The government insists the way to reduce the number of people crossing the Channel in small boats is to prevent the vessels from leaving France in the first place or by intercepting the boats and returning those attempting to make a crossing.
But humanitarian groups and refugee and asylum experts argue the way to reduce the number of attempted crossings is to offer alternative “safe and legal” routes to the UK to claim asylum.
Continue reading...Software hailed as a ‘game-changer’ in providing early warning for humanitarian relief efforts as virus fuels conflict
Coronavirus is predicted to push more than 1 million people from their homes across the Sahel, creating havoc in an already highly fragile region, according to new forecasting software.
Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger and Nigeria in west Africa are predicted to see displacement as a result of the increasing conflict, unemployment and human rights abuses brought on by fallout from the coronavirus, the analytical tool developed by the humanitarian group Danish Refugee Council (DRC) has found.
Continue reading...PM hints at law change to make it easier to deport people who make dangerous voyage
Boris Johnson has branded attempts by people to cross the Channel in small boats as a “very bad and stupid and dangerous and criminal thing to do” and hinted at changing the law to make it easier to deport such arrivals.
Meanwhile, a French politician has warned that the UK’s decision to send in the Royal Navy “won’t change anything”, and a former Home Office official has said he was sceptical of the plans.
Continue reading...French and British ministers prepare to meet after 151 more people came ashore on Saturday
Tensions are mounting between the UK and France over migrant crossings in the Channel after the number of people who have reached UK shores in small boats this year surpassed 4,000.
Families with young children were among hundreds of people who came ashore near Dover this weekend, including 151 on Saturday, the Home Office confirmed.
Continue reading...Covid gives us an opportunity to weigh up what truly belongs and what can be left back in the life before the plague
In early March I flew to New Zealand through the busy Tullamarine airport. I returned to a country in lockdown. I had been to speak at the New Zealand festival of the arts held in Wellington. Life was normal. We moved freely: going out for drinks, eating at various restaurants, hugging friends and shaking hands. We even went to a club to dance. It was packed as sweaty, dancing bodies pumped into each other. We casually spoke about the spread of the coronavirus as it began to emerge as a potentially serious public health issue but the consequences and impact of the disease felt distant. It was still happening far away. It was not yet an issue to worry about or to change one’s plans to accommodate. At that time, such a reaction would have appeared exaggerated. The events that followed over the next few days were unimaginable.
At the festival, I had presented to a full room of a few hundred people; 24 hours later, that felt like a bygone era. By the time I landed in Melbourne, restrictions were in place and large gatherings had been banned. I went home and began my 14 days of isolation. It was difficult to keep up with the pace of change. In Victoria, events progressed to a state of emergency. Back in New Zealand, the country went into a nationwide lockdown. The world became a different place within weeks.
Continue reading...Home Office asked for patrols after saying migrants should face ‘real consequences’
Alarm is growing over UK proposals to introduce hardline measures to discourage refugees and illegal migrants from seeking sanctuary after the Ministry of Defence confirmed it was considering a Home Office request to deploy navy vessels in the Dover Straits.
It comes after the immigration minister, Chris Philp, called for migrants caught crossing the Channel to be fingerprinted and face “real consequences”, before a meeting next week with his French counterparts.
Continue reading...Countless young people are being pushed to Europe’s margins by hardline border and migration policies
We don’t know how many undocumented children are living in Europe. We don’t even know how many children are currently locked up in detention because of their own or their parents’ immigration status. While the European Union requires precise data collection in numerous sectors – we know how many dairy cows there are in the EU and the UK, for example – the lack of data and visibility of undocumented children seems a political, rather than a technical, void.
Being born in Europe is not enough to prevent a child from becoming undocumented, if they are born to undocumented parents. No European country grants citizenship solely based on birth in the national territory. Others in the ranks of the undocumented moved to Europe as kids and have spent most of their lives here. For them, Europe is home. But policy hasn’t caught up with this reality.
Continue reading...In July, the remains of nearly 250 migrant workers were repatriated to Mexico City. Two grieving families share their stories and loss
On Saturday 11 July, a plane arrived in Mexico City with the remains of nearly 250 Mexican migrant workers who had died of Covid-19 in the US. A solemn ceremony was held with the participation of the consul general for New York, Jorge Islas López, who had helped organise the repatriation flight.
Continue reading...Sea-Watch 4 is result of crowdfunding and is set to leave from Spain in few days
The German Protestant church will send a ship to the central Mediterranean to rescue migrants attempting to reach Europe from north Africa.
The boat, named Sea-Watch 4, will depart in a few days from the seaport of Burriana, near Valencia, in Spain, where volunteers are finalising preparations, the crew has said.
Continue reading...Kingdom urged to rethink mass deportation policy as crowded and insanitary conditions spark Covid-19 fears
Ibraahin’s* first week of work at a market in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, was also his last. As the sun set on the fifth day, the police descended upon the crowds and rounded up the 40-year-old Somali, along with several other undocumented migrant workers. They were transported to the nearby al-Shumaisi detention centre where many, including Ibraahin, remain months later, awaiting deportation.
Saudi authorities regularly arrest those found to be working illegally in the kingdom without a visa. Many are held in al-Shumaisi, a huge complex designed to hold 32,000 inmates. It has four grey-walled wings for male inmates, two for females and one for children. Detainees are held in a crowded series of bunk bed-filled halls, which each hold around 80 people.
Continue reading...With not enough workers to pick the upcoming harvest, Australia faces potential food shortages, and its farmers face economic devastation
As Victoria’s Covid-19 outbreak threatens to spiral out of control and beyond its borders, Australia faces another pandemic-related crisis.
We are sailing into a food shortage and few are talking about it. This needs to change.
Continue reading...Patients on island camps face long wait for specialist help and mental health services, while in Athens others are left destitute
In a fresh blow to refugees and migrants experiencing dire conditions in Greece, frontline medical charity Médecins San Frontières (MSF) on Thursday announced it has been forced to closed its Covid-19 isolation centre on Lesbos after authorities imposed fines and potential charges.
From the island of Lesbos to the Greek capital of Athens, asylum seekers and recognised refugees, some with serious medical conditions, are unable to access healthcare or see a doctor as treatments are disrupted by new regulations.
Continue reading...Those of us who have resettled in the US and other countries all left someone very close to us behind
On 19 July 2013 the Australian government announced that those who arrived by boat seeking safety would never reach the mainland. The effect of this policy is beyond description and I am still haunted by the memories of the time myself and hundreds of others were held captive on Manus Island.
The concept of a system ruining people’s lives is not easy to understand. It is complex, destructive and manipulative and every aspect is highly politicised. It is a form of systematic torture, the scars of which are not obvious, but they are real and will affect a person for the rest of his or her life.
Continue reading...Survivors of dangerous sea journey convicted amid a rise in hate speech and mass detentions in centres rife with Covid-19
A group of Rohingya refugees who survived a treacherous journey at sea now face caning and seven months in jail after they were convicted under the immigration act in Malaysia, where activists have warned of an alarming rise in xenophobia and inhumane treatment of the migrants.
Hundreds of arrests and a sharp rise in hate speech have shocked refugees and migrants who had seen Malaysia as a welcoming country, particularly for Muslims, despite not being signed up to the 1951 refugee convention.
Continue reading...Migration ministry ‘concerned Turkey may use migrants as instrument to exert pressure’
Greece is stepping up preparations for a possible increase in migrants and refugees reaching the Aegean islands from Turkey, as police arrested six alleged people smugglers at the weekend.
The ability of traffickers to circumvent the vast flotilla of naval ships and coastguard patrols conducting border surveillance in the area has reinforced fears of a surge in migrants arriving at a time of dangerously deteriorating ties between the two countries.
Continue reading...Residents protest against arrival of people who tested positive for coronavirus
Italy has deployed dozens of soldiers to a town in Calabria to patrol apartment buildings where rescued migrants who tested positive for coronavirus have been placed under quarantine.
The decision follows residents’ protests in Amantea, in the province of Cosenza, where 13 people from Bangladesh were moved to after arriving in the coastal town of Roccella Jonica last week and testing positive for the virus.
Continue reading...With Germany at the EU helm, there’s a unique chance for Europe to fill the vacuum left by the retreating US
With Trump’s US missing in action from the global stage, the European Union should be stepping into the vacuum. Germany, which has just taken over the bloc’s rotating presidency, could use the next six months to provide the leadership to boost Europe’s global impact. But is it ready to shake off its traditional reticence?
Immediate economic challenges will dominate EU leaders’ first in-person encounter since the lockdown, on 17 and 18 July. And Berlin is right to prioritise agreement on the EU’s new seven-year budget and a pandemic recovery plan, a task complicated by internal rifts and new forecasts warning of an even deeper recession than expected across the 27-nation bloc. As Angela Merkel said in a recent Guardian interview: “For Europe to survive, its economy needs to survive.”
Continue reading...Covid-19 exposed the country’s reliance on ‘invisible workers’ enduring wretched conditions – and a new visa scheme has not addressed the problem
Earlier this summer, as millions of Italians were locked down inside their homes, fruit and vegetables were left to rot in the fields despite the cost to the country’s economy.
Italy’s informal refugee and migrant workforce, who had previously worked long hours in wretched conditions for paltry wages to bring produce off the fields, were absent from the farms.
Continue reading...