Category Archives: Migration and development

UN warns of impact of smart borders on refugees: ‘Data collection isn’t apolitical’

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Special rapporteur on racism and xenophobia believes there is a misconception that biosurveillance technology is without bias

Robotic lie detector tests at European airports, eye scans for refugees and voice-imprinting software for use in asylum applications are among new technologies flagged as “troubling” in a UN report.

The UN’s special rapporteur on racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, Prof Tendayi Achiume, said digital technologies can be unfair and regularly breach human rights. In her new report, she has called for a moratorium on the use of certain surveillance technologies.

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Inquiry launched into EU commission’s protection of migrants at Croatia border

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Investigation follows allegations of brutal pushbacks of refugees into Bosnia and lack of monitoring of border police

An official inquiry has been launched into the European commission’s alleged failure to protect the rights of migrants and refugees said to have been robbed and abused by police at Croatia’s borders.

The EU ombudsman is investigating the potential complicity of the EU’s executive branch in the maladministration of funds that should have been spent on supervising the behaviour of border officers working at the scene of some of the violence.

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EU accused of abandoning migrants to the sea with shift to drone surveillance

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Border agency Frontex accused by campaigners and MEPs of evading its responsibilities towards people in distress

The EU has been accused of condemning migrants to death by critics of its recent €100m (£90m) deals for drone surveillance over the Mediterranean Sea.

Campaigners and MEPs have accused the EU’s border agency Frontex of investing in technology to monitor migrants from afar and skirt its responsibilities towards people in distress.

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Croatian police accused of ‘sickening’ assaults on migrants on Balkans trail

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Testimony from asylum seekers alleging brutal border pushbacks, including sexual abuse, adds to calls for EU to investigate

People on the Balkans migrant trail have allegedly been whipped, robbed and, in one case, sexually abused by members of the Croatian police.

The Danish Refugee Council (DRC) has documented a series of brutal pushbacks on the Bosnia-Croatian border involving dozens of asylum seekers between 12 and 16 October.

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Senior Libyan coastguard commander arrested for alleged human trafficking

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Abd al-Rahman Milad, known as Bija, is suspected of being behind the drowning of dozens of refugees

The UN-backed government in Libya has arrested a coastguard commander alleged to be one of the world’s most ruthless human traffickers.

On Wednesday, authorities in Tripoli said Abd al-Rahman Milad, known as Bija, and suspected of being behind the drowning of dozens of people, has been arrested in the Hay-al-Andalus district of the city and is now being detained by Rada special forces.

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Aid cuts and Covid force Uganda refugees to brink of starvation

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More than 90,000 face extreme hunger with another 400,000 hit by food crisis, says report

Nearly 500,000 refugees in Uganda are struggling to eat as a result of cuts to food aid and Covid-19 restrictions.

More than 91,000 people living in 13 refugee settlements around the country are experiencing extreme levels of hunger, according to the latest analysis by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), published this week. More than 400,000 refugees are considered to be at crisis hunger levels.

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‘Moria 2.0’: refugees who escaped fire now living in ‘worse’ conditions

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More than 7,500 people living in tents on squalid settlement, with two other camps on Lesbos set to close

Thousands of people who fled the fire that destroyed the infamous Moria refugee camp in Lesbos, Greece, last month are living in dire and unsanitary conditions in a temporary settlement with little access to water or basic sanitation.

Just over 7,500 people are now living in tents among the rubble and dust of a former shooting range in an informal settlement that has become known as “Moria 2.0”.

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Internal displacements reach 15m in 2020 with worst ‘still to come’ – report

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Extreme weather, locust invasions and violence have forced people to flee their homes

Millions of people were uprooted from their homes by conflict, violence and natural disasters in the first six months of this year, research has found.

Nearly 15m new internal displacements were recorded in more than 120 countries between January and June by the Swiss-based Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC).

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‘Moria no more’: the refugees left to sleep in car parks after escaping blaze

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Peaceful protests break out as the fire that destroyed Europe’s largest refugee camp leaves thousands without provisions, shelter or medical help

After days of sleeping on the streets since fleeing a fire which, for many, claimed all of their worldly belongings, Moria camp residents protested in their thousands on Friday. Babies sat on the shoulders of their fathers and small children carried signs bearing the word “freedom,” written on scraps of cardboard.

People clapped, whistled and banged empty water bottles together during a peaceful but noisy protest as frustrations ran high. Camp residents have been stuck on the streets between Moria camp and the main town of Mytilene, blocked in on all sides by police buses. Riot police in helmets and holding shields looked on as the protest passed them.

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If you felt cooped up in lockdown, think of refugees confined in camps | Moulid Hujale

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From panic buying to lack of freedom, the pandemic is an opportunity to understand the lives of those forced to flee

Covid-19 has transformed the world beyond imagination, affecting almost everyone in some way.

Yet for me the changes have felt familiar – from movement restrictions to quarantines, every measure taken to prevent the spread of the virus reminds me of what it means to live as a refugee in a camp.

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Bellicose words won’t stop the Channel dinghies – but compassion might | Regina Catrambone

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Fear of what lies behind drives people against desperate odds. Turning them away won’t stop them, and risks more deaths

The dangerous waters of the Channel have seen a rise in the number of people trying to cross to the UK in desperately unsuitable and overcrowded dinghies. The British government has called for the use of defence forces to stop them.

Fears of “outsiders” bringing danger are exacerbated in the strange times of the coronavirus pandemic, when most of us face unprecedented restrictions on movement, making it a fertile climate to propagate anti-migrant messaging.

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‘Entire families are arriving at our shores’: Covid drives Tunisian exodus

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Italy is facing an influx of people trafficked on fishing boats, desperate to escape Tunisia’s deepening economic crisis

Unsurprisingly for a coastal town perched upon Tunisia’s border with Libya, it’s hot when Ahmed climbs into the back of the car outside the petrol station in Zarzis.

It’s clear from the outset he feels uncomfortable talking to a journalist. Nevertheless, he’s here.

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Covid to displace more than a million across the Sahel, new tool predicts

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Software hailed as a ‘game-changer’ in providing early warning for humanitarian relief efforts as virus fuels conflict

Coronavirus is predicted to push more than 1 million people from their homes across the Sahel, creating havoc in an already highly fragile region, according to new forecasting software.

Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger and Nigeria in west Africa are predicted to see displacement as a result of the increasing conflict, unemployment and human rights abuses brought on by fallout from the coronavirus, the analytical tool developed by the humanitarian group Danish Refugee Council (DRC) has found.

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Rohingya face ‘cruel’ caning sentence in Malaysia as hostility to refugees grows

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Survivors of dangerous sea journey convicted amid a rise in hate speech and mass detentions in centres rife with Covid-19

A group of Rohingya refugees who survived a treacherous journey at sea now face caning and seven months in jail after they were convicted under the immigration act in Malaysia, where activists have warned of an alarming rise in xenophobia and inhumane treatment of the migrants.

Hundreds of arrests and a sharp rise in hate speech have shocked refugees and migrants who had seen Malaysia as a welcoming country, particularly for Muslims, despite not being signed up to the 1951 refugee convention.

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‘I saw so much killing’: the mental health crisis of South Sudan refugees

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Therapy is helping some of the thousands forced over the border to Uganda to cope, but funding shortfalls mean resources are becoming scarcer

As darkness fell, Rebecca closed the door to her makeshift home. The day was over.

The 29-year-old, who had been uprooted from South Sudan to a north Ugandan refugee settlement, sat on the bed where her four children slept and, at around 10pm, tried to take her own life. “By then I didn’t care about anything – not myself, not even my kids. The pain was too extreme,” she says. Her children awoke and their cries brought help from neighbours.

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Uganda reopens border to thousands of people fleeing violence in DRC

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Call for other African countries to reopen for refugees, after crossings were shut to stem the spread of coronavirus

Uganda has temporarily opened its border to thousands of people fleeing deadly ethnic clashes in neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

The Ugandan government closed its reception centres at border crossings in March in an attempt to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

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Croatian police officers arrested over beating of Afghan asylum seeker

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Arrest follows series of complaints of abuse and torture by Croatian law enforcement against those crossing from Bosnia

Two Croatian police officers were arrested on Thursday over the beating of an asylum seeker, as the UN urged the country to immediately investigate reports of excessive use of force against migrants.

The police in Karlovac, 35 miles south-west of Zagreb, announced the two officers had been charged after an Afghan man who crossed the border from Bosnia was injured, 24sata, a leading daily newspaper in Croatia, reported.

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‘Boats arrive, people disappear’: one Greek’s search for missing refugees

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When asylum seekers seen landing on Chios vanished, a local journalist’s investigation put him at odds with authorities

When Ioannis Stevis moved back to his native island of Chios after a long career in journalism he could not have imagined that his retirement project would eventually put him at odds with his own government.

But the local online news service he created, Astraparis, ended up bearing witness to one of the most significant stories in recent European history: the ongoing refugee crisis.

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Forcibly displaced now account for 1% of humanity – UN report

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Almost 80 million people are refugees or internally displaced, with the number doubling in the past decade

The number of people forcibly displaced from their homes has doubled over the past decade to almost 80 million, according to the UN refugee agency.

A 9 million rise in the number of those forced to flee in 2019, fuelled by conflict in Syria, Yemen, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Burkina Faso, means that one in every 97 people around the world – about 1% of all humanity – is now displaced, according to numbers in UNHCR’s annual report, published on Thursday.

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‘I just need a connection’: the refugees teaching languages across borders

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A unique platform lets teachers from Venezuela to Syria to Burundi earn a living teaching their language online

Louisa Waugh and Ghaith Alhallak have met for language lessons in seven countries. “We counted it up the other day,” says Waugh, recalling the list of places from which she has video-called Alhallak: Britain, Mali, Senegal and Greece. Alhallak has answered from Lebanon, France and Italy, where he is now studying for a master’s degree in political science at the University of Padua.

“You just need a connection,” he says.

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