Category Archives: Migration

Sex traffickers left thousands of women to starve during Italy lockdown

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Revealed: Gangs abandoned trafficked Nigerian women without access to food or funds amid coronavirus pandemic

Thousands of Nigerian women forced into prostitution were left to starve by sex traffickers during the Covid-19 pandemic in Italy, the Guardian can reveal.

According to the UN’s International Office for Migration (IOM), more than 80% of the tens of thousands of Nigerian women who arrived in Italy from Libya in recent years were victims of highly organised sex trafficking gangs. The women are forced into prostitution to pay off debts of up to €40,000 (£36,000) and controlled through violence and fear of “juju” black magic rituals they are made to undergo before their journey to Europe.

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‘This is intolerable’: fearful Australians in Hong Kong hasten plans to leave city

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Expats say they feel insecure about living somewhere ‘where the walls have ears’

• Australia’s Hong Kong intervention was hardly strident but that didn’t matter to China

Australian expats in Hong Kong are feeling jittery about their future after Beijing imposed a new national security law that could lead to foreigners being arbitrarily detained. They say the move has hastened their plans to leave the financial hub amid calls from their government for its citizens to “reconsider” their need to stay there.

The national security law passed in Beijing and enacted in Hong Kong on 1 July punishes crimes of secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces with up to life in prison. It applies to permanent residents and non-residents in Hong Kong who breach the law in the territory, along with anyone accused of violating the law regardless of their nationality and where the alleged crime took place – so foreigners could be arrested on arrival in Hong Kong. National security cases can also be sent to Chinese courts for trial.

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‘Get me back to Caracas’: desperate Venezuelans leave lockdown Bogotá

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Their ambitions for a new life in Colombia shattered, migrants are lining up for the bus journey back to an uncertain future

Rosa Vera, a 40-year-old from a small town in crisis-ridden Venezuela, thought moving to Colombia would give her the chance to find work. Five months ago, she left her family and began the arduous journey to Bogotá, the Colombian capital, to look for a job.

Instead, as coronavirus shut down economic life in the city, Vera and more than 400 Venezuelans had no choice but to camp out for a month, waiting for help to get them home.

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Refugee victims of Tajoura bombing still lie in unmarked graves one year on

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Coronavirus thwarts plan by survivors to light candles for dozens of detainees who died in airstrike on detention centre during Tripoli fighting

One year on from the migrant detention centre bombing in Tajoura, eastern Tripoli, dozens of refugees and migrants who died have never been formally identified.

At least 53 people were killed and 130 injured on the night of 2 July 2019, according to the UN, after an airstrike by a foreign aircraft supporting eastern warlord Khalifa Haftar’s forces hit a hall where migrants and refugees were locked up.

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EU to restrict most US residents from visiting amid pandemic, reports say

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Officials draw up ‘safe list’ of countries whose residents can visit, with Russia and Brazil also excluded

The European Union is set to restrict most US residents from visiting the region when travel restarts due to concerns about the coronavirus, according to multiple reports.

EU officials are in the process of settling on a final “safe list” of countries whose residents could travel to the bloc in July, but the US, Brazil and Russia are set to be excluded, Reuters reported. With coronavirus continuing to spread in the US at alarming rates, the possibility of allowing American tourists into the EU is not even part of the ongoing discussion, six diplomats familiar with the talks told the Washington Post.

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Thousands of potential trafficking victims ‘not given vital support’

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Less than fifth of those identified by Home Office as likely modern slavery victims are referred for legal and housing advice – study

Thousands of people identified as potential victims of trafficking in the UK have not been referred for support despite government pledges to help them, according to a new study.

Many victims of trafficking are hidden and unable to access support because they are under the control of those who are exploiting them. But victims who do come into contact with the authorities such as the police, Home Office or Gangmaster and Labour Abuse Authority (GLAA) which investigates reports of worker exploitation and human trafficking, should be referred for safe housing and legal advice.

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Home Office ‘uses racial bias’ when detaining immigrants

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Pressure group claims disproportionate number of black people held for longer periods to ‘reduce black and brown migration to UK’

Black people are detained significantly longer than white people inside the UK’s immigration detention system, prompting fresh claims of “institutional racism”.

Although the Home Office does not record ethnicity data for detainees, analysis of nationalities of those recently held within the immigration detention estate found that citizens from countries with predominantly black and brown populations are held for substantially longer periods than those from predominantly white countries.

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Croatian police officers arrested over beating of Afghan asylum seeker

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Arrest follows series of complaints of abuse and torture by Croatian law enforcement against those crossing from Bosnia

Two Croatian police officers were arrested on Thursday over the beating of an asylum seeker, as the UN urged the country to immediately investigate reports of excessive use of force against migrants.

The police in Karlovac, 35 miles south-west of Zagreb, announced the two officers had been charged after an Afghan man who crossed the border from Bosnia was injured, 24sata, a leading daily newspaper in Croatia, reported.

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‘Boats arrive, people disappear’: one Greek’s search for missing refugees

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When asylum seekers seen landing on Chios vanished, a local journalist’s investigation put him at odds with authorities

When Ioannis Stevis moved back to his native island of Chios after a long career in journalism he could not have imagined that his retirement project would eventually put him at odds with his own government.

But the local online news service he created, Astraparis, ended up bearing witness to one of the most significant stories in recent European history: the ongoing refugee crisis.

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Forcibly displaced now account for 1% of humanity – UN report

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Almost 80 million people are refugees or internally displaced, with the number doubling in the past decade

The number of people forcibly displaced from their homes has doubled over the past decade to almost 80 million, according to the UN refugee agency.

A 9 million rise in the number of those forced to flee in 2019, fuelled by conflict in Syria, Yemen, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Burkina Faso, means that one in every 97 people around the world – about 1% of all humanity – is now displaced, according to numbers in UNHCR’s annual report, published on Thursday.

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EU ‘covered up’ Croatia’s failure to protect migrants from border brutality

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Exclusive: Brussels officials feared disclosing Zagreb’s lack of commitment to monitoring would cause ‘scandal’

EU officials have been accused of an “outrageous cover-up” after withholding evidence of a failure by Croatia’s government to supervise police repeatedly accused of robbing, abusing and humiliating migrants at its borders.

Internal European commission emails seen by the Guardian reveal officials in Brussels had been fearful of a backlash when deciding against full disclosure of Croatia’s lack of commitment to a monitoring mechanism that ministers had previously agreed to fund with EU money.

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At least 35 people dead as migrant boat sinks off Tunisia

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Boat carrying 53 people trying to reach Italy sank last week, reports say

At least 35 people have died after a boat carrying dozens of people sank last week off the coast of Tunisia, according to local officials.

According to an initial reconstruction of events, the boat, carrying 53 people mostly from sub-Saharan Africa, had left the Tunisian coast from the city of Sfax, aiming to reach Italy. The shipwreck occurred between 4 and 5 June off the Kerkennah Islands, said investigators, and authorities were alerted on 9 June by fishermen who first spotted the floating bodies.

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‘We’re poor people’: Middle East’s migrant workers look for way home amid pandemic

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Gulf states prepare for demographic shift as migrant workforces return home, with prospects bleak for those who stay

During 14 years in Lebanon, Jevie Olido’s four children have grown up without her, her marriage has failed and her parents have grown old. Now, the income that kept her far from her home in the Philippines has also gone, rubbed out by the coronavirus crisis and an economic implosion that has forced thousands of desperate domestic workers like her to look for ways to leave.

In neighbouring Jordan, Samir Ali, an Indian garment worker, is also waiting to be paid, after only receiving his March salary when he and other foreign workers at their factory threatened to strike. The pandemic has crippled production across the country and caused clashes between labourers and employers. Eight of the 40 men had registered to go back to India once their contracts had finished. “We’ve decided this factory is really bad,” he said. “We’re poor people, so we have to find another way.”

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Yemen’s hidden migrants risk conflict and coronavirus in fight for survival

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Refugees face violence and disease as they travel across the Red Sea hoping to find work in the Gulf states

Yellow and purple headscarves and patterned dresses made a jarring contrast with the camouflage uniforms worn by soldiers milling around a bullet-ridden checkpoint in the southern Yemeni city of Aden. 

It was 8am, and the sun was already hot. The family of six – four women and two men from Ethiopia, across the Red Sea – had already walked eight miles (13km) so far that morning. They stopped to ask the soldiers for water before continuing on their journey.

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US may take in Hongkongers ahead of China security laws, Pompeo suggests

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Secretary of state says he is considering immigration option similar to move announced last week by UK

The US is considering letting people who no longer “feel comfortable” in Hong Kong move to the US, secretary of state Mike Pompeo has suggested.

The comments, made in a conversation with the American Enterprise Institute on Friday, come amid worsening relations between the two countries over China’s moves to impose national security laws on the semi-autonomous region.

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Italy considers charges over Malta’s ‘shocking’ refusal to rescue migrants

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Foreign ministry condemns Valletta for not abiding by international rules and ordering stricken boat to Sicily at gunpoint

The Italian government  has confirmed that Malta’s armed forces turned a migrant boat away at gunpoint from Maltese waters, after giving them fuel and the GPS coordinates to reach Italy.

Police in Sicily are investigating and the prosecutor’s office may open an investigation against Malta in the next few days. Maltese officers risk being charged with aiding illegal immigration. 

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Crosses on our heads to ‘cure’ Covid-19: refugees report abuse by Croatian police

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Group of asylum seekers including minors say they were beaten and spray-painted near the border with Bosnia, as calls grow for EU to investigate

Details have emerged of more than 30 migrants allegedly robbed, beaten and spray-painted with red crosses on their heads by Croatian police officers who said the treatment was the “cure against coronavirus”.

The Guardian has interviewed asylum seekers, obtained photographs and collected dozens of testimonies, including from minors, revealing how the Croatian authorities were laughing and drinking beer while spray-painting migrants attempting to cross the border from Bosnia-Herzegovina, as EU parliamentarians have now begun pushing for an independent commission of inquiry to investigate the abuses.

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Greece ready to welcome tourists as refugees stay locked down in Lesbos

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In Moria, Europe’s largest migrant camp, tensions are rising as life is more restricted and the threat of Covid-19 is ever present

Children fly kites between tents in the shadow of barbed wire fences as life continues in Europe’s largest refugee camp. There are 17,421 people living here in a space designed for just under 3,000. Residents carrying liquid soap and water barrels encourage everyone to wash their hands as they pass by, refugees and aid workers alike. While Moria remains untouched by the pandemic, the spectre of coronavirus still looms heavy.

Greece is poised to open up to tourism in the coming months and bars and restaurants are reopening this week. Movement restrictions were lifted for the general population on 4 May but have been extended for refugees living in all the island camps and a number of mainland camps until 7 June.

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‘My angel’: man who became face of India’s stranded helped home by stranger

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Image captured the plight of the millions of migrant labourers left unable to return home in the pandemic

A photograph of a migrant labourer, his face contorted with anguish as he sits on the roadside in Delhi speaking to his wife about their sick baby boy, has come to symbolise the ordeal of India’s daily wage workers; penniless, and unable to get home to their families because of the lockdown.

Rampukar Pandit, a construction worker in the Indian capital, had heard that his 11-month-old son was seriously unwell. With no public transport to reach his home in Begusarai in Bihar, 1,200 km (745 miles) away, he started walking. He reached Nizamuddin Bridge where, exhausted and hungry, he could go no further.

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French court scraps olive farmer’s conviction for helping migrants cross border

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Amnesty International says appeals ruling will affect ‘acts of solidarity’ throughout Europe

A French court has scrapped all charges against an olive farmer who helped migrants enter the country illegally, the final chapter in a groundbreaking case that defined so-called “crimes of solidarity”.

Cedric Herrou, who helped about 200 migrants cross the border from Italy into southern France, was given a four-month suspended sentence in August 2017.

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