Category Archives: Migration and development

MPs, unions and refugee groups condemn Braverman’s small boats deal with France

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Critics claim latest effort to reduce Channel crossings is ‘throwing good money after bad’

Conservative MPs have joined unions and refugee groups in condemning a £63m deal signed by Suella Braverman with her French counterpart to reduce the number of people attempting to cross the Channel in small boats.

Natalie Elphicke, the member for Dover, and Tim Loughton, a senior home affairs select committee member, questioned whether the bilateral agreement will do enough to address a surge of new arrivals after it failed to establish joint patrols or guarantee that people smugglers are detained.

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More bodies, thought to be of Ethiopian migrants, found in mass grave in Malawi

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Bodies of four men, believed to be en route to South Africa, found less than a mile from where 25 bodies were exhumed in Mzimba

Authorities in Malawi have discovered four bodies in a forest close to where dozens more were found in a mass grave on Wednesday.

Police say the bodies were found yesterday morning, less than a mile from where 25 others were exhumed in Mtangatanga Forest Reserve in the northern district of Mzimba.

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UN warns against alarmism as world’s population reaches 8bn milestone

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UNFPA head urges countries to focus on helping women, children and marginalised people most vulnerable to demographic change

The world must not engage in “population alarmism” as the number of people living on Earth nears 8 billion, a senior UN official has said.

The global population is projected to reach that milestone on 15 November, with some commentators expressing worries about the impact of the growing number on a world already struggling with huge inequality, the climate crisis, and conflict-fuelled displacement and migration.

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UN urges investigation after 92 naked migrants ‘sent’ from Turkey into Greece

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UNHCR says circumstances of ‘shocking’ discovery unclear amid rising tension between two countries

The UN refugee agency is demanding an urgent investigation into the discovery of 92 naked people on Greece’s land border with Turkey, calling the incident shocking and saying it had been “deeply distressed” by images of the group.

The men, mainly from Afghanistan and Syria, were found close to the frontier after crossing the Evros River in rubber dinghies, according to Greek police. Children were among the group, a UNHCR spokesperson told the Guardian.

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Record numbers of people risking lives to cross Darién Gap to US

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More than 150,000 fleeing poverty have reached Panama so far this year in pursuit of American dream

The humanitarian crisis in Darién Gap has reached new heights as medical NGOs are overwhelmed by the record numbers of people risking their lives to cross the lawless strip of jungle in Latin America en route to the US.

An exodus of Venezuelans fleeing socioeconomic collapse has led to more people embarking on the perilous journey across the only land bridge connecting South and North America so far this year than in the entirety of 2021, Panamanian authorities say.

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Syrian refugees mass in convoy on Turkish border to walk into Greece

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Tens of thousands of people are planning to enter EU country together, after alleged racist attacks and rising tensions

Thousands of Syrian refugees are assembling in Turkey in a convoy, which organisers have dubbed the Caravan of Light, in an audacious and desperate attempt to enter the EU en masse.

Since early September, Syrians have been drawing up plans for the journey via a Telegram channel, which now has more than 85,000 members.

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Libyan militia detains hundreds of Chadians after poachers arrested

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At least 400 Chadian workers rounded up in east Libyan town of Ajdabiya after security forces in Chad arrest four Libyan poachers

Hundreds of Chadians are being rounded up and detained on the streets of a Libyan town for a ninth day in retaliation for the Chad government’s arrest of four Libyan men on suspicion of poaching endangered animals.

At least 400 people have now been arrested in the city of Ajdabiya by a militia linked to the warlord Khalifa Haftar, commander of the self-styled Libyan National Army.

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Oman ‘failing to stop trafficking and abuse of migrant domestic workers’

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Report finds widespread instances of forced labour, with women denied access to passports and subjected to physical or sexual abuse

Oman is failing to protect migrant domestic workers who are victims of human trafficking, trapped in abusive households and subjected to physical and sexual violence with no access to justice or a safe route home, a report has found.

Do Bold, an organisation that works to assist and repatriate migrant workers trapped in the Gulf, interviewed 469 domestic workers from Sierra Leone working in Oman, for the report. It concluded that all but one of the women interviewed were victims of forced labour and human trafficking.

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Eritrean refugees say they are being arbitrarily detained in Ethiopian camps

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Exclusive: Tigrinya speakers say they face beatings, detention and privation, and blame UN for ‘abandoning’ them, despite right to be in Ethiopia

Eritrean refugees in Ethiopia say they are being targeted for arbitrary arrest and forcible relocation to war-torn parts of the country, despite having UN permission to remain in Ethiopia.

Government security officers are accused of rounding up, abusing and unlawfully detaining refugees who have legal status, as well as Eritreans who have foreign citizenship.

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Teenager saves baby from shipwreck during Mediterranean crossing

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‘I went to help people,’ says Togolese boy, who was among 71 survivors rescued nine days after boat sank, killing at least 30

The actions of a teenager from Togo have been lauded after video footage was published of him supporting a baby he saved from a shipwreck in the Mediterranean Sea last week in which at least 30 people died.

The 17-year-old, whose identity has not been disclosed, swam to save the child, whom he was holding above water when a rescue team arrived, in footage published by the French media group Brut.

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Melilla: death toll from mass incursion on Spanish enclave rises to 23

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Crowd of more than 500 enter border control area after cutting fence in attempt to cross from Morocco

The death toll from the mass attempt to cross from Morocco into Spain’s enclave of Melilla has risen to 23, according to Moroccan state TV.

About 2,000 people approached Melilla at dawn on Friday and more than 500 managed to enter a border control area after cutting a fence with shears, the Spanish government’s local delegation said in a statement.

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Rohingya refugee deported from Kashmir to Myanmar reunited with family

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Separated in March, Hasina Begum’s family have now settled in Bangladesh as India continues to deport Rohingya despite UN refugee status

A Rohingya woman deported to Myanmar from Indian-administered Kashmir in March has been reunited with her family in Bangladesh.

Hasina Begum, 37, was deported from Jammu despite having UN refugee status, leaving her husband and three children behind in Kashmir. She was the first Rohingya refugee to be deported from among 170 who were detained by authorities in the region in March 2021.

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‘Huge spike’ in global conflict caused record number of displacements in 2021

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Those fleeing combat were internally displaced 14.4m times, with biggest toll in sub-Saharan Africa, report reveals

Conflict and violence forced people from their homes a record number of times last year, a report has found, with sub-Saharan Africa bearing the brunt of mass internal displacement caused by “huge spikes” in fighting.

People fleeing violence were internally displaced 14.4m times in 2021, an increase of 4.6m on 2020, according to figures published by the Norwegian Refugee Council’s Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC).

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Revealed: EU border agency involved in hundreds of refugee pushbacks

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Investigation suggests Frontex’s database recorded incidents of illegal pushbacks in Aegean Sea as ‘prevention of departure’

The EU’s border agency has been involved in the pushbacks of at least 957 asylum seekers in the Aegean Sea between March 2020 and September 2021, according to a new investigation.

Frontex, the EU’s best-funded agency with a budget of €758m, is being investigated over previous allegations of complicity with Greek authorities in illegal pushbacks of asylum seekers, something the organisation has denied.

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Deportation of Rohingya woman from India sparks fear of renewed crackdown

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Hasina Begum was separated from her family and forced to return to Myanmar despite her refugee status. Hundreds of others now face expulsion

The deportation of a Rohingya woman back to Myanmar has sparked fears that India is preparing to expel many more refugees from the country.

Hasina Begum, 37, was deported from Indian-administered Kashmir two weeks ago, despite holding a UN verification of her refugee status, intended to protect holders from arbitrary detention. Begum was among 170 refugees arrested and detained in Jammu in March last year. Her husband and three children, who also have UN refugee status, remain in Kashmir.

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MEPs voice fury as Greek judges again postpone refugees’ smuggling appeal

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Second adjournment prolongs agony of Afghans Amir Zahiri and Akif Rasuli, serving 50-year sentences for piloting a migrant boat

MEPs appalled by “shocking” legal proceedings against two Afghans convicted of people smuggling in Greece have vowed to raise the issue with the European parliament.

Lawmakers who had flown into Lesbos for a scheduled appeals court hearing of the asylum seekers on Thursday – the second in three weeks – were outraged when judges again adjourned the case, prolonging the agony of the refugees, who are currently serving 50-year prison terms.

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Ukraine’s refugees: how many are displaced and where will they go?

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More than 1 million people have already crossed the border, with numbers set to rise as the Russian invasion intensifies. What has been the response of neighbouring countries?

What is the expected scale of the refugee crisis in Ukraine?

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could see the “largest refugee crisis this century”, the UN refugee agency has warned, with up to 4 million people fleeing the country in the coming weeks and months.

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People of colour fleeing Ukraine attacked by Polish nationalists

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Non-white refugees face violence and racist abuse in Przemyśl, as police warn of fake reports of ‘migrants committing crimes’

Police in Poland have warned that fake reports of violent crimes being committed by people fleeing Ukraine are circulating on social media after Polish nationalists attacked and abused groups of African, south Asian and Middle Eastern people who had crossed the border last night.

Attackers dressed in black sought out groups of non-white refugees, mainly students who had just arrived in Poland at Przemyśl train station from cities in Ukraine after the Russian invasion. According to the police, three Indians were beaten up by a group of five men, leaving one of them hospitalised.

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Dominican Republic starts work on border wall with Haiti

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Officials claim the controversial barrier will stop migrant crossings, as well as drugs and contraband, from crisis-hit Haiti

The Dominican Republic has begun work on a border wall with Haiti, sparking controversy between the neighbouring Caribbean countries.

Construction began this week on a concrete barrier that will span nearly half of the 244-mile (392km) border between the two countries, with Dominican officials claiming it will reduce flows of migrants, drugs, weapons and contraband.

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‘It’s an atrocity against humankind’: Greek pushback blamed for double drowning

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An investigation alleges two men seeking international protection were pushed from a boat off the coast of Samos

On 15 September 2021, Sidy Keita from Ivory Coast and Didier Martial Kouamou Nana from Cameroon, boarded a dinghy from Turkey to Greece. Despite making it to the Greek island of Samos, their bodies were found days later, washed ashore in Aydin province, on the Aegean coast.

Interviews with more than a dozen witnesses, analysis of classified documents, satellite imagery, social media accounts and online material, and discussions with officials in Turkey and Greece, have helped piece together what happened over five September days during which the two men died, likely victims of a pushback by the Greek authorities.

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