Category Archives: Migration

Rescued migrants hijack merchant ship off Libya

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The 108 people picked up by Elhiblu 1 reportedly hijacked it when they learned they were being returned to Libya

A merchant ship has been hijacked by refugees and migrants that it had rescued off the coast of Libya, and is now heading towards Malta, the Italian deputy prime minister and Maltese authorities have said.

Corriere della Sera and Italian news agencies reported that 108 people were picked up by the tanker Elhiblu 1, and hijacked the vessel when it became clear that it planned to take them back to Libya.

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New migrant caravan receives cooler welcome in Mexico

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  • 2,500-strong group mainly from Central America and Cuba
  • Activists say government is trying to stop migrants reaching US

A new migrant caravan of about 2,500 people is making its way through southern Mexico, headed for the US border, facing greater heat – and a much cooler welcome – than last year’s caravans.

The caravan walked past the city of Huixtla in the southern state of Chiapas on Monday, but police were lined up to keep them moving along a highway outside the town, and did not let them enter – a contrast to last year, when caravans were allowed to stay in the city center.

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Italian authorities order seizure of migrant rescue ship

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Volunteers rescued about 50 people off Libya on Tuesday in defiance of government order

Italian authorities have ordered the seizure of a charity rescue ship after it defied the government’s order not to bring refugees and migrants to Italy.

On Tuesday, volunteers onboard the Mare Jonio rescued about 50 people from a rubber boat off the coast of Libya, prompting Italy’s far-right interior minister, Matteo Salvini, to say he was ready to stop private vessels “once and for all” from bringing rescued people to Italy.

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Italian charity ship defies Rome to rescue 50 off Libyan coast

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Rescue could spark showdown with government after order not to bring migrants to Italy

An Italian charity ship has rescued about 50 people from a rubber boat off the coast of Libya, prompting Rome to warn it is ready to stop private vessels “once and for all” from bringing rescued migrants to Italy.

The interior minister, Matteo Salvini, has repeatedly declared Italian waters closed to NGO rescue vessels and has left several of them stranded at sea in the past in an attempt to force the rest of Europe to take in more asylum seekers.

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EU declares migration crisis over as it hits out at ‘fake news’

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European commission combats ‘untruths’ over issue after row with Hungary’s Viktor Orbán

The European commission has declared the migration crisis over, as it sharpened its attack on “fake news” and “misinformation” about the issue.

Frans Timmermans, the European commission’s first vice-president, said: “Europe is no longer experiencing the migration crisis we lived in 2015, but structural problems remain.”

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Italy’s intelligence agency warns of rise in racist attacks

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Agency says increase in attacks on migrants is likely before European elections in May

Italy’s intelligence agency has warned in a briefing to the Italian parliament that attacks on migrants and minorities could rise in the run-up to May’s European elections.

Racially motivated attacks have seen a sharp increase in Italy and tripled between 2017 and 2018, when the far-right League entered government in coalition with the anti-establishment Five Star Movement.

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Last four refugee children leave Nauru for resettlement in US

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Move follows intense campaign by refugee advocates for all children sent to the island by the Australian government to be taken off

The last four children living in Australian government-run offshore processing on Nauru have now left the island, amid a group of 19 people flown to the US for resettlement.

The group includes a number of Iranians, according to refugee advocates, contradicting persistent suspicions that Donald Trump’s travel ban on six nationalities was blocking refugees from the resettlement scheme.

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Greece races to move refugees from island likened to a ‘new Lesbos’

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Migration minister warns camp on Samos where hundreds of children live in squalor is six times over capacity

Greek authorities are scrambling to house almost 4,000 people crammed into an overflowing migrant camp in Samos, as aid groups warn of a “humanitarian disaster” on one of Europe’s forgotten frontlines.

Likening Samos to a “new Lesbos,” the country’s migration minister warned of a race against the clock to find suitable accommodation for the ever growing number of people trapped in a reception centre now six times over capacity.

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Italian senate group votes to block criminal case against Salvini

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Rest of senate must choose whether to ratify decision over kidnapping charges

An Italian parliamentary committee has voted to block a criminal case against Matteo Salvini, the deputy prime minister and interior minister, for refusing to allow migrants to disembark from a rescue ship.

Prosecutors in Catania, Sicily, need the backing of parliament to continue investigations against Salvini, who also leads the far-right League party, for alleged abuse of office and kidnapping.

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Swedish student fined for plane protest against Afghan’s deportation

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Elin Ersson received a £250 fine for refusing to take her seat on a plane in Sweden last year

A Swedish student who livestreamed her protest against the deportation of an Afghan asylum seeker last year has been found guilty of violating Sweden’s aviation laws and fined £250.

Elin Ersson, 22, avoided a prison sentence at the Gothenburg district court, where she was sentenced to a fine of 3,000 Swedish krona.

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Tricked, abducted and killed: the last day of two child migrants in Mexico

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The deaths show the vulnerability of migrants forced to ‘remain in Mexico’ under new US policy for asylum seekers

On a Saturday afternoon in December, three Honduran boys walked out through the gates of the blue stucco YMCA shelter for unaccompanied child migrants in Tijuana, and turned past the gas station next door on to Cuauhtémoc Boulevard for a walk.

Their destination was a sports centre-turned-migrant camp to visit people they’d met travelling north with a caravan of other Central Americans.

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Scott Morrison says people smugglers will ‘have a crack’ if Labor is elected

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Bill Shorten dismisses PM’s comments, saying it’s possible to have strong borders and treat people humanely

The prime minister, Scott Morrison, has sent out a fresh message on border security, saying “people smugglers know they won’t get through me and Peter Dutton” but would “have a crack” if Bill Shorten became prime minister.

Morrison said the government had “increased the strength, resource and capability again of Operation Sovereign Borders” after the asylum seeker medevac legislation passed parliament this week, in spite of the Coalition’s best efforts to block it.

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Pakistan intervenes in case of man facing deportation from Australia

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High commission urges early redress for Nauroze Anees, citing his ‘uncomfortably prolonged detention’

Pakistan’s high commission has called for early redress for one of its citizens held in “overstretched and uncomfortably prolonged detention” in Australia’s onshore immigration facilities.

The man, a 32-year-old who arrived in 2007 on a student visa, has been refused ministerial intervention in his case, despite acting as the primary carer for his partner. He is among the growing cohort of people inside detention on section 501 “character test” deportation orders.

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High court rejects attempt to challenge Australia’s indefinite detention regime

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Plaintiff’s lawyers wanted to suspend case after argument about his identity came unstuck in Canberra high court

The high court has rejected an attempt to reopen a controversial ruling which effectively enabled indefinite immigration detention in Australia.

The full bench in Canberra took the highly unusual step of delivering an immediate judgement, after a tumultuous day which saw the plaintiff’s lawyers seek to stop them hearing the case and have it sent back to a single judge for reassessment.

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Italy split by Inspector Montalbano’s pro-migrant message on TV

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Sicilian detective recovers body of drowned migrant in episode of drama series

Italy’s most famous fictional detective has delivered a pro-migrant message on TV, angering supporters of the far-right deputy prime minister, Matteo Salvini.

In a scene from a new episode of the TV series Inspector Montalbano that aired in Italy on Monday night, the Sicilian investigator, played by the Roman actor Luca Zingaretti, jumps into the sea to recover the body of a migrant who drowned attempting to reach the shore.

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Viktor Orbán: no tax for Hungarian women with four or more children

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Growing families better than letting Muslim immigrants in, says prime minister

Hungary’s populist prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has promised that women who have four or more children will never pay income tax again, in a move aimed at boosting the country’s population.

Orbán, who has emerged as Europe’s loudest rightwing, anti-immigration voice in recent years, said getting Hungarian families to have more children was preferable to allowing immigrants from Muslim countries to enter.

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‘You’re lucky to get paid at all’: how African migrants are exploited in Italy | Hsiao-Hung Pai

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Under the baking sun, workers toil for €2 an hour. And the country’s hard-right authorities keep turning the screw

The dawn was about to break as I arrived, with a team of workers in the farmer’s van, at the vast fields that stretch out for miles around Campobello, the “handsome fields”, in western Sicily. Everyone got out, and immediately started to work on their line of olive trees. It would take the team several weeks to harvest them.

Related: ‘Migrants are more profitable than drugs’: how the mafia infiltrated Italy’s asylum system

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Hakeem-al Arabi: Thai cave diving heroes Harris and Challen call for footballer’s release

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The divers, who were named 2019 Australians of the Year, have written to the Thai prime minister to free the refugee

The Thailand cave rescue diving heroes and Australians of the Year, Dr Richard Harris and Dr Craig Challen, have joined the campaign to save the refugee footballer Hakeem-al Arabi, a Bahraini refugee and resident of Australia who is being detained in Bangkok.

Harris, an anaesthetist and diver from Adelaide, and Challen, a champion diver from Wangara, Western Australia, were part of the global team that freed the trapped Wild Boars football team in July 2018. They have been friends and cave diving partners for years.

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Man trying to enter France from Italy dies of hypothermia

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Derman Tamimou from Togo found lying unconscious on side of road between Piedmont and Hautes-Alpes

French magistrates have opened an inquiry into “involuntary manslaughter” after a man died of hypothermia after trying to cross into France from Italy.

A truck driver found Derman Tamimou from Togo on Thursday morning, lying unconscious on the side of a highway that links the northern Italian region of Piedmont with France’s Hautes-Alpes. He was taken to hospital in the French town of Briançon, but it is unclear whether he died there or was already dead at the scene. He was found between Briançon and Montgenèvre, an Alpine village about 6 miles from the Italian border.

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Fear and anger stalk thousands of Britons living on Costa del Sol

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For 300,000 UK citizens in Spain, which does not allow dual citizenship, pension and healthcare worries are hard to resolve

A couple of years ago, Michael Soffe seemed to have a charmed life. A gourmet tour guide and wedding planner, he’d made a home and built a business in sun-soaked Málaga, the increasingly hip city at the heart of Spain’s southern coast.

Now he fears that everything he’s worked for is hanging in the balance as heedless politicians push Brexit negotiations to the brink. His biggest worry is that his partner, a two-time cancer survivor still in treatment, could lose his right to public healthcare.

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