Category Archives: Migration

‘They accept that they might die’: Vietnamese in Britain recall perilous flight to safety

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Essex lorry tragedy has brought back painful memories for those who made similar decisions in search of a better life

For Loan Hoang, news of the tragedy in Essex brought memories rushing back of how her own brothers risked their lives to help their family flee Vietnam four decades ago.

In 1978, three of them were among 600 people crammed on to a boat made for 400. With the boat barely floating under the weight of its cargo, they set out to sea uncertain whether the voyage would end in safety or death.

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13 women dead and eight children missing after boat capsizes off Italy

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Vessel carrying people from sub-Saharan Africa hit rough seas near island of Lampedusa

At least 13 women have died and eight children are missing after a boat capsized in rough seas off the Italian island of Lampedusa on Sunday night as a patrol vessel attempted to save it.

Italian authorities have rescued 22 survivors from the boat, which was carrying about 50 people. Only four of the 13 recovered bodies have been identified by surviving family members, including that of a 12-year-old girl.

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Human trafficker was at meeting in Italy to discuss Libya migration

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Abd al-Rahman Milad attended 2017 talks between intelligence officials and Libyan coastguard

One of the world’s most notorious human traffickers attended a meeting in Sicily with Italian intelligence officials to discuss controls on migrant flows from Libya.

Abd al-Rahman Milad, known as Bija, took part in a meeting with Italian officials and a delegation from the Libyan coastguard at Cara di Mineo, in Catania, one of the biggest migrant reception centres in Europe, on 11 May 2017.

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Riots follow deadly fire at Lesbos refugee camp – video

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Refugees clashed with police on the Greek island of Lesbos after a deadly fire at a crowded migrant camp prompted riots and led to authorities using teargas to restore order. The blaze, which erupted at a container inside the Moria camp on Sunday, is thought to have killed at least two people, though the death toll remains unclear. The camp hosts about 13,000 people but has facilities for just 3,000

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‘We’ve been taken hostage’: African migrants stranded in Mexico after Trump’s crackdown

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Hundreds of migrants from Africa are stuck in Tapachula because of Mexico’s willingness to bow to Trump and stem the flow of migrants

Neh knew she was taking a risk when she got involved with English-language activists in mostly-Francophone Cameroon.

She had no way of know that her decision would eventually force her to flee her country, fly halfway across the world and then set out on a 4,000-mile trek through dense jungle and across seven borders – only to leave her stranded in southern Mexico, where her hopes of finding safety in the US were blocked by the Mexican government’s efforts to placate Donald Trump’s anti-migrant rage.

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First migrants land in Italy under post-Salvini coalition deal with EU

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EU ministers pledge support as 82 disembark from NGO boat, ending Salvini’s entry ban

Eighty-two migrants have disembarked in Italy, marking a break from the era of hardline immigration measures pushed by the former interior minister, Matteo Salvini.

On Saturday night, the migrants were transferred from the Norwegian-flagged rescue boat Ocean Viking, operated by the French charities SOS Méditerranée and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), to a coastguard vessel before being taken ashore on the Sicilian island of Lampedusa.

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‘It’s impossible to do anything’: Indonesia’s refugees in limbo as money runs out

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Australia’s funding cuts force hundreds of homeless refugees to plead to be taken into immigration detention

Once a military command post, the two-storey lime green building in Kalideres, West Jakarta, is now essentially a refugee camp.

More than 400 refugees are temporarily housed here in small dome tents squashed into every room and spilling out into the concrete car park. There is no running water, electricity, bathroom facilities or any certainty of food. A few days ago someone delivered biscuits, but there has been nothing since.

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Mexico boasts of crackdown but smugglers say migrant flow continues

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President Amlo says his new immigration plan is working, but huge numbers still travel north – aided by smugglers’ bribes

Mario Rosales is organising travel arrangements for his latest clients, a Honduran woman and her two primary school-aged children hoping to reach the United States.

Rosales, 47, a coyote, or people smuggler, sends their photos via WhatsApp to his contact in the Mexican National Immigration Institute (INM) in order to obtain fake identity cards – all part of the family’s travel package, which costs $1,800 per person to traverse about half (1,750km) of the region’s most dangerous migration route.

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‘Life-saving’: hundreds of refugees to be evacuated from Libya to Rwanda

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First group expected to leave dire detention centres in days, as UN denies reports that plan is part of EU strategy to keep refugees from Europe

Hundreds of African refugees and asylum seekers trapped in Libyan detention centres will be evacuated to Rwanda under a “life-saving” agreement reached with Kigali and the African Union, the UN refugee agency said on Tuesday.

The first group of 500 people, including children and young people from Somalia, Eritrea and Sudan, are expected to arrive in Rwanda over the coming days, out of 4,700 now estimated to be in custody in Libya, where conflict is raging. The measure is part of an “emergency transit mechanism”, to evacuate people at risk of harm in detention centres inside the county.

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Channel smugglers cram 30 migrants into boats made for six

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Children tell charity workers of being knocked into the water as attempts to reach UK from France increase

Smugglers are cramming up to 30 people on to small boats to cross the Channel from France to the UK, and children have been among those who have recently fallen overboard, campaigners have revealed.

As crossing attempts surge at the close of summer amid rumours that Brexit will mean tighter border restrictions, criminal gangs are loading inflatable boats up to five times their capacity. Previously, people smugglers would put about eight passengers on each vessel.

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‘Invest or pay the price’: more than half of refugee children not in education

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UN refugee chief warns of generation condemned to grow up unable to find work, as special education envoy Gordon Brown calls for urgent funding

More than half of the world’s 7.1 million school-age refugee children are failing to get an education despite recent spikes in enrolment rates, the UN refugee agency has found.

School shortages, oversubscribed classrooms and a lack of teachers in host countries are among the barriers faced by the 3.7 million refugee children aged five to 18 who are currently out of school, according to a UNHCR report published on Friday. The vast majority are missing out on secondary school.

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Westminster looks at giving France money to curb Channel crossings

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Priti Patel discusses increasing financial support amid hike in attempted crossings

The UK government is considering increasing the amount it pays France to help deal with people trying to make the perilous Channel crossing to England using small boats, Paris has said.

The proposal was discussed during talks on Thursday between the British home secretary, Priti Patel, and her French counterpart, Christophe Castaner, that were prompted by an increase in the number of such attempted crossings over the summer.

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Biloela Tamil family’s deportation to Sri Lanka prevented by last-minute injunction

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Peter Dutton says family of four ‘not owed protection’ after they were removed from deportation flight in Darwin thanks to court injunction

A Tamil asylum-seeker family whose deportation was halted in mid-air on Thursday night do not deserve protection from Australia, Peter Dutton has said.

The family of four were put on a non-commercial flight from Melbourne bound for Sri Lanka about 11pm on Thursday.

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Italy grounds two planes used to search for migrant boats

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NGOs Pilotes Volontaires and Sea-Watch blocked from using aircraft for Mediterranean rescues

Italy has grounded two planes used by NGOs to search for migrant boats in distress in the Mediterranean.

The planes – Moonbird and Colibri – are operated by the German NGO Sea-Watch and the French NGO Pilotes Volontaires respectively and have been flying reconnaissance missions over the Mediterranean since 2017.

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Walking through a war zone: Ethiopians heading for Saudi – in pictures

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Escaping poverty and drought, Ethiopians are making the dangerous sea crossing from Djibouti to Yemen and then on foot to the Saudi border. Many only realise they are crossing a conflict zone when they are picked up by gangs or militias

Photographs by Susan Schulman

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The asylum seekers held in a PNG prison have a choice: return to death or literally rot in jail | First Dog on the Moon

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They have already been suffering in inhumane conditions for six years. All this is well known and makes no difference

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More Hongkongers look to move to Australia amid growing political unrest

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Migration agent says housing and other economic factors are also driving residents to consider moving

Hong Kong’s continuing political unrest has led to a surge in applications from residents seeking to emigrate, including to Australia, and some migration agents are reporting a doubling in inquiries as the protests run into their third month.

Australia was the top destination for Hong Kong emigrants in 2018 – nearly a third (2,400) of the 7,600 Hongkongers who left last year went to Australia.

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Nearly 900,000 asylum seekers living in limbo in EU, figures show

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Backlog of claims persists despite number of arrivals almost halving in two years

Close to 900,000 asylum seekers in the EU are waiting to have their claims processed, according to figures from the European statistics office.

Women, men and unaccompanied children are living for years in uncertainty, with numbers of pending applications for international protection almost unchanged from two years ago when 1.1 million migrants were “stuck” in the continent.

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The west takes its eyes off Africa at its peril | Larry Elliott

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The G7 thought it had solved Africa’s problems, but rising child poverty is a ticking time bomb

Time was when Africa dominated gatherings of the G7. In the period between two summits held in the UK – Birmingham in 1998 and Gleneagles in 2005 – the talk was of little else. There was public activism and it led to political action.

In part, that was because the big developed countries were enjoying a spell of low-inflationary growth and could look beyond their own problems to see a bigger picture. There was the occasional financial panic, but the G7 thought the problems of economic management had largely been solved and all that was needed was a bit of tinkering by technocratic central bankers.

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