A roundup of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Myanmar to Germany
Continue reading...Category Archives: Migration and development
‘He saw the panic’: the Afghan men who fell from the US jet
One was a young footballer, another a dentist. Their shocking deaths haunt the families who could not stop their desperate bids to escape
When Zaki Anwari scaled the fence of Kabul airport, he was determined to escape. The 17-year-old footballer with the Afghan national youth team had taken a break from studying maths for his exams to accompany his brother as he tried to catch a flight. Zaki had always told his family he was not interested in going abroad, unless he could return to Afghanistan.
But the Taliban takeover had changed things. Zaki did not have a passport but, as night fell on Kabul after the Taliban took control of the city, he told his brother Zakir that he wanted to leave. Zakir did his best to talk him out of it, but he would not let go of the idea.
Continue reading...Yemen at war: conflict, chaos and rare joy – in pictures
Over the past four years, photographer Giles Clarke has reported from Yemen for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), documenting the tragedy of a country devastated by war but also the resilience of its people. The photojournalism festival Visa pour l’image is featuring his work at an exhibition in Perpignan, France
Continue reading...The disappeared in Mexico, Afghan female footballers and a giant puppet: human rights this fortnight in pictures
A roundup of the coverage of the struggle for human rights and freedoms from Thailand to Texas
Continue reading...Where’s Edelyn? The search for the Filipina maid who vanished in Saudi Arabia
Mired in debt, the mother of three left to work as part of the Gulf’s kafala labour system. She was last heard from in 2015 and her family want answers
Edelyn Eborda Astudillo wanted a better life for her three children. The 36-year-old from Mariveles in the Philippines, and her husband, Crisanto, had been unemployed for six years and things were getting desperate. So, in early 2015, Edelyn made the decision to travel to the Middle East to get a job as a domestic worker.
After applying to a Philippine recruitment agency, Manumoti Manpower, Edelyn was soon on a flight abroad. She was placed in a house to work for a couple in Taif, in the west of Saudi Arabia.
Continue reading...How street art is helping young migrants paint a brighter future in Italy
An innovative community project has brightened buildings, ‘brought people together’ and provided an emotional outlet after traumatic journeys
Jadhav*, 18, from Bangladesh, arrived in Italy 10 months ago, but is still haunted by memories of his journey with people smugglers across the Mediterranean Sea.
“There were 156 people packed into a small boat. There were women and children,” says Jadhav in broken Italian and Bengali translated on a smartphone app. “Waves were coming over the side. People were weeping. There was no hope of survival.”
Continue reading...‘Sometimes I have to pick up a gun’: the female Afghan governor resisting the Taliban
Salima Mazari, one of only three female district governors in Afghanistan, tells of her motivation to fight the militants
It is early morning in Charkint, in the northern Balkh province of Afghanistan, but a meeting with the governor is already well under way to urgently assess the safety of the 30,000 people she represents. Salima Mazari has been in the job for just over three years, and for her, fighting the Taliban is nothing new, but since July she has been meeting with the commanders of her security forces every day as the Islamist militants’ attacks across the country increase.
As one of only three female district governors in Afghanistan, Mazari has attracted attention simply by being a woman in charge. What sets the 40-year-old apart, particularly amid the recent wave of Taliban violence, is her hands-on military leadership. “Sometimes I’m in the office in Charkint, and other times I have to pick up a gun and join the battle,” she says.
Continue reading...Fleeing the Taliban: Afghans met with rising anti-refugee hostility in Turkey
As violence causes a fresh wave of desperate journeys, populist politicians claim their country has become a ‘dumping ground’
- Photography by Emre Caylak for the Guardian
It was a journey that had taken weeks, and there were times when the 65-year-old Afghan widow, who walks with the aid of a stick, had to be carried by her son.
Their trek, across 15 canyons she says, left Durdana with badly scarred feet. “I have not had a day of peace in over 40 years. I had to come to Turkey, there was no choice.”
Continue reading...‘We walked 18 hours, no food’: Taliban advance triggers exodus of Afghans
As the conflict intensifies amid the withdrawal of US-led forces, a new wave of families are being forced to flee via perilous routes to Iran and Turkey
A weary Zebah Gul and her eight children are gathered quietly in a small room at a transit centre in Herat, north-eastern Afghanistan. Their six-month attempt to escape the war and find safety has failed.
They have just spent a week in Iranian police detention after being caught trying to cross the border into Turkey, and are beginning to make their way back to their besieged home province of Takhar, on the opposite side of the sprawling country.
Continue reading...Migration and Covid deaths depriving poorest nations of health workers
Fragile health systems are at risk due to high numbers of medical staff leaving to work in richer countries, say experts
The loss of frontline health workers dying of Covid around the globe, is being compounded in the hospitals of developing nations by trained medical staff leaving to help in the pandemic effort abroad, according to experts.
With new Covid waves in Africa, and with Latin America and Asia facing unrelenting health emergencies, the number of health worker deaths from Covid-19 in May was at least 115,000, according to the World Health Organization. Its director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, acknowledged data is “scant” and the true figure is likely to be far higher.
Continue reading...No man’s land: three people seeking asylum stuck in Cyprus’s buffer zone
The Cameroonians, who had ‘no idea’ they had jumped into the demilitarised area, have been trapped for almost two months
A few months after Grace Ngo flew into Turkish-occupied northern Cyprus from her native Cameroon, she decided to head “for the west”. Smugglers pointed the student in the direction of the Venetian walls that cut through the heart of Nicosia, Europe’s last divided capital.
A little before midnight on 24 May, Ngo leapt from the breakaway Turkish Cypriot republic into what she hoped would be the war-divided island’s internationally recognised Greek south.
Continue reading...Fresh evidence of violence at Libyan detention centres as boats turned back
Amnesty International says sexual abuse and beatings rife at camps for those forcibly returned after trying to cross the Med
New evidence of starvation and abuses inside migrant detention centres has been collected from migrants inside seven facilities across Libya.
A report by Amnesty International comes less than a month after Médecins Sans Frontières announced it was suspending its operations at two centres in Libya because of increasing violence towards refugees and migrants.
Continue reading...‘A world problem’: immigrant families hit by Covid jab gap
Families spread across rich and poor countries are acutely aware of relatives’ lack of access to vaccine
For months she had been dreaming of it and finally Susheela Moonsamy was able to do it: get together with her relatives and give them a big hug. Throughout the pandemic she had only seen her siblings, nieces and nephews fully “masked up” at socially distanced gatherings. But a few weeks ago, as their home state of California pressed on with its efficient vaccination rollout, they could have a proper reunion.
“It was such an emotional experience, we all hugged each other; and with tears in our eyes, we thanked God for being with us and giving us the opportunity to see each other close up again and actually touch each other,” she says. “We never valued a hug from our family members that much before.”
Continue reading...‘I didn’t eat for days’: hunger stalks Venezuelan refugees
Colombian health workers struggling to cope as malnutrition and dirty water ravage new arrivals in Maicao’s swelling shanty towns
A seemingly endless lake of cardboard and tin shacks surrounds the perimeter of a former airport runway in Colombia’s desert-like city of Maicao. Known locally as La Pista, the area is home to more than 2,000 families, and is one of 44 informal settlements to have emerged around the city in the past two years.
The old airport has become a landing strip for desperate migrants and bi-national indigenous Wayuu people fleeing the economic and political crisis in Venezuela, where the basic essentials of life are hard to come by.
Continue reading...Italy to investigate Libyan coastguard’s ‘attempted shipwreck’ of migrant boat
Officials to be investigated after film appears to show patrol boat firing shots at a vessel carrying 64 people in the Mediterranean
Prosecutors in Sicily have launched an investigation against the Libyan coastguard after footage emerged appearing to show officials firing on a boat of migrant families in the Mediterranean Sea.
On 30 June, rescue workers from the German organisation Sea-Watch recorded the Libyan coastguard patrol vessel coming dangerously close to the small wooden boat and apparently firing shots in an attempt to force the 64 people onboard back to Libya.
Continue reading...Libyan coastguards ‘fired on and tried to ram migrant boat’ – NGO
German rescue group issues video of Libyans’ ‘brutal attack’ on boat of migrant families in Mediterranean
Footage has emerged that appears to show the Libyan coastguard firing on a boat in distress carrying migrant families in the Mediterranean Sea.
Rescue workers from the German organisation Sea-Watch recorded the coastguard patrol vessel apparently trying to ram the small wooden boat and firing shots in an attempt to force the people onboard back to Libya.
Continue reading...Greece accused of refugee ‘pushback’ after family avoid being forced off island
Story of Palestinians who hid on Samos to escape deportation to Turkey appears to be ‘proof’ that pushbacks continue, claim rights groups
On 26 April Dimitris Choulis, an immigration lawyer based on the Greek island of Samos, opened his office door to find a family of four on his doorstep. Aisha*, 31, and her three children, all from Palestine.
“She said ‘pushback,’” said Choulis, “and I understood what had happened.” These were the only people left on the island out of a group of asylum seekers who had arrived from Turkey a few days before.
Continue reading...Greek police arrest Dutch journalist for helping Afghan asylum seeker
Ingeborg Beugel was detained for ‘facilitating the illegal stay of a foreigner’ and faces up to a year in jail
A Dutch journalist based in Greece has been arrested on the Greek island of Hydra for hosting an Afghan asylum seeker in her home and could face up to a year in prison if charged and convicted.
Ingeborg Beugel, 61, a freelance correspondent for Dutch media who has lived on Hydra for almost 40 years, was arrested on 13 June accused of “facilitating the illegal stay of a foreigner in Greece”. The charge carries a 12-month prison sentence and a fine of €5,000 (£4,300).
Continue reading...Violence towards refugees at Libyan detention centres forces MSF to pull out
Medical charity says abuse and attacks have escalated as more migrants are intercepted at sea and camps become increasingly overcrowded
Increasing violence towards refugees and migrants held in Libyan detention centres has forced Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) to suspend its operations at two facilities, the medical charity said.
MSF said its teams witnessed guards beating detainees, including those seeking treatment from MSF doctors, during a visit to the Mabani detention centre in Tripoli last week.
Continue reading...‘We thought we would return’: 10 years on, Syrian refugees dream of home – photo essay
A decade after civil war broke out, women who fled to Lebanon are still struggling to build a life amid the country’s unfolding economic crisis
Millions of Syrians have fled fighting over the past 10 years. The vast majority of refugees – more than 3.5 million – are living in Turkey, but more than 850,000 are living in informal settlements in Lebanon.
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