Category Archives: Migration

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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Johnson warns against Channel crossings after dozens intercepted

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People arriving illegally will be sent back to France, says prime minister

Boris Johnson has warned those thinking of crossing the Channel illegally that they will be sent back to France after dozens of people, including children, were intercepted on Thursday in several incidents at sea and on the south coast.

The prime minister’s comments came as the home secretary, Priti Patel, prepared to hold talks with her French counterpart about the crossings, which have sometimes been linked to fairer weather conditions.

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Greek NGO helping child refugees wins $2m humanitarian prize

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Metadrasi provides translators, transport and helps find homes for unaccompanied minors

An NGO helping migrant and refugee children in Greece has won the world’s biggest annual humanitarian award.

Metadrasi received the $2m (£1.6m) Hilton humanitarian prize for its “innovative approach to welcoming refugees and protecting unaccompanied minors”, the Conrad N Hilton Foundation said.

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People on rescue ship off Italy at breaking point, say doctors

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Ship carrying 107 people rescued from sea has been refused permission to dock

The medical and psychological condition of people onboard a rescue boat anchored off the Italian island of Lampedusa for 18 days has reached breaking point, doctors have said.

The vessel operated by the Spanish charity Proactiva Open Arms has been refused permission to dock by Italy’s far-right interior minister, Matteo Salvini. On Monday Open Arms suggested chartering a plane to fly the 107 migrants onboard to Spain.

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Book charting grim life at offshore refugee ‘prison’ sweeps Australia’s literary prizes

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The Kurdish-Iranian author, who wrote using a smuggled phone, receives awards by Skype because he remains in detention

Behrouz Boochani is one of Australia’s most-celebrated contemporary writers. Last week, the Kurdish-Iranian journalist won a A$25,000 (£14,000) national biography award for No Friend but the Mountains, a book judges described as “profoundly important”. It wasn’t the first prize the book had received in Australia: it has now won the Victorian Premier’s Literary award, the New South Wales Premier’s Literary award and the Australian Book Industry’s non-fiction book of the year.

One critic described it as a “masterpiece,” another called it “the standout book of the year” and another, novelist Michelle de Kretser, said it was “lucid, poetic and devastating”.

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Migrant ship heads for Italy’s waters after judge overrules Salvini

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Spanish humanitarian ship Open Arms has 147 rescued people on board

The Spanish humanitarian ship Open Arms was headed for the Italian island of Lampedusa with 147 rescued migrants on board on Wednesday after a judge in Rome suspended far-right interior minister Matteo Salvini’s decree banning the vessel from Italy’s territorial waters.

The Proactiva Open Arms charity which operates the ship said it would not try to force entry to Lampedusa port, as another rescue vessel, the Sea-Watch 3, did in June, prompting its seizure and the arrest of its captain.

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Behrouz Boochani wins National Biography award – and accepts via WhatsApp from Manus

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Judges call Kurdish Iranian writer and refugee’s memoir an ‘astonishing act of witness’

The Kurdish Iranian writer Behrouz Boochani has continued his sweep of the Australian literary prize landscape, winning the $25,000 National Biography award on Monday – yet another award the refugee was unable to accept in person, as he enters his sixth year of detention on Manus Island.

Boochani’s autobiography No Friend but the Mountains tells of his journey from Indonesia to Australia by boat, and his subsequent imprisonment on Manus Island by the Australian government, which continues to refuse him entry.

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Richard Gere and Matteo Salvini clash over migrant crisis

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Row follows US actor urging Italian government to ‘stop demonising asylum seekers’

Italy’s far-right deputy prime minister, Matteo Salvini, has clashed with Richard Gere over the migrant crisis in the Mediterranean, suggesting the Hollywood star should house himself those stranded on rescue ships after the US actor urged the Italian government to “stop demonising asylum seekers”.

Gere who is currently on the island of Lampedusa, Sicily, after a visit onboard a Spanish NGO ship, Proactiva Open Arms, where he met some of the 160 migrants the vessel rescued in the strait of Sicily. The ship has been stuck for 10 days off Lampedusa due to Italy’s ban on landing migrants.

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