Bodies found in cargo container alongside 14 survivors
Sixty-four people from Ethiopia have been found dead crammed inside a freight container in north-west Mozambique, a senior hospital official has said.
The victims were discovered on Tuesday in a blue cargo container loaded on to a truck in the province of Tete. They were surrounded by survivors. Daily temperature highs in Tete are currently about 34C (93F).
Continue reading...Fear of being left without money or food following suspension of some NGO activities adds to already desperate situation
Hundreds of refugees forced to leave a UN-run centre in Libya earlier this year, including survivors of the Tajoura detention centre bombing, are among those worried about being cut off from aid in the coronavirus outbreak.
Last week, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) announced it would suspend some activities in Libya, including work at a Tripoli community day centre and a registration centre where new arrivals can sign up for help. UNHCR will also stop making visits to detention centres until staff are given personal protective equipment, though a spokesperson said the agency will increase phone counselling and outreach to refugee community leaders. Both UNHCR and the International Organization for Migration have halted resettlement flights for refugees and migrants globally.
Continue reading...Exodus expected to continue from Central American country, amid fears of repeat of state and police repression
More than 100,000 people have fled persecution in Nicaragua, with numbers set to rise, two years after the country was plunged into social and economic crisis, the UN’s refugee agency warned.
Even after a violent crackdown against nationwide anti-government protests in April 2018 had subsided, Nicaraguan students, human rights defenders, journalists and farmers have continued to seek asylum abroad at the rate of 4,000 a month.
Continue reading...It is a place where worlds converge, a vast melting pot of different peoples, all in search of a better life. Yet the US-Mexico border is also, increasingly, a focal point for human suffering
Milson, from Honduras, sits with his 14-year-old daughter, Loany, on the reedy riverbank beside the bridge connecting Matamoros, in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, with downtown Brownsville, Texas, across the Rio Grande.
On the far reach – a few yards but another world away – is a vast tent (officially a “soft-sided facility”) erected to cope with the sheer numbers seeking asylum in the US. In a few weeks’ time, on the date stipulated on their “notice to appear” document, the people staying here will have their “credible fear interview” by video link.
Continue reading...Prof Massimo Del Bene aids African migrants whose captors inflicted horrific injuries to extort ransom payments
The first patient was a young Ghanaian man who had been tortured every day for more than a year in Libya by traffickers trying to extort a ransom for his release, says Prof Massimo Del Bene, head of reconstructive surgery at the San Gerardo hospital in Monza, north of Milan.
Since then, the surgeon renowned for performing the first double hand transplant in Italy, has adapted his expertise to what he calls “torture surgery”, helping African migrants who have survived Libyan detention camps, where traffickers and criminal gangs are documented to have tortured captives to extort ransom money.
Continue reading...Smugglers responsible for mass atrocities in Thailand may be linked to capsized boat carrying refugees from Bangladesh to Malaysia
Activists fear a dangerous transnational trafficking network is being revived after at least 16 Rohingya refugees drowned in the Bay of Bengal on Tuesday morning.
Bangladeshi officials said a wooden fishing boat carrying about 138 people capsized near Bangladesh’s St Martin’s island in the early hours.
Continue reading...Dangerous conditions fail to deter record number of people from attempting to enter UK
The approach of Storm Ciara has not deterred 102 people from trying to cross the Channel on Friday.
Five inflatable boats carrying migrants who said they were from Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan and Syria were picked up by Border Force, the Home Office said.
Continue reading...A nature photographer captured an unlikely friendship between children living in a disused army barracks in Berlin and local wildlife
It all started when I began working as a sports educator for refugee children living in the old military barracks in Spandau, Berlin. It was just a job in the beginning, but it slowly turned into much more. It changed my life.
Continue reading...Refugees in Cox’s Bazar complain the international aid community does not utilise their experience and say the lack of education risks creating a ‘lost generation’
In a tea room just outside Bangladesh’s Rohingya refugee camps, a group of young activists fiddle with their phones, which have suddenly started pinging in chorus now they are finally reconnected to the internet.
To circumvent a government internet blackout around the camps in Cox’s Bazar, they have to break a ban on travelling to nearby Bangladeshi towns, from where they can communicate and coordinate messages for the international community.
Continue reading...Majority of tents in Agadez were destroyed by fire following peaceful sit-in, leaving Sudanese living in fear
Sudanese refugees in Niger say they have been living in an atmosphere of fear and intimidation after security forces cracked down on protests calling for better living conditions.
Refugees have been sleeping in the desert despite low temperatures since their camp in Agadez was almost completely burned down last month after a sit-in was forcibly dispersed by Nigerien security forces. The Nigerien authorities said they arrested 355 people immediately after the fire.
Continue reading...The 16-year-old, from Eritrea, had been in the facility for more than a year and died of an unknown illness and lack of medical care
A 16-year-old is the latest person to die in a network of Libyan detention centres where refugees and migrants are locked up indefinitely after they are returned to the war-torn north African country by the EU-funded coastguard.
Fellow detainees in Sabaa detention centre, Tripoli, named the boy as Adal Debretsion, an Eritrean who had reportedly been locked up for more than a year. They said the teenager died on 12 January of an unknown illness and a lack of medical care.
Continue reading...Refugees and asylum seekers who found respite in Rwanda camp after escaping conflict in Libya will be resettled in Norway
Hundreds of refugees and asylum seekers evacuated from Libyan detention centres to a transit camp in Rwanda are to be resettled this year in Norway, according to Rwanda’s foreign minister.
Speaking at a news conference in Kigali on Wednesday, Rwanda’s foreign minister Vincent Biruta said the African nation was currently hosting more than 300 refugees and asylum seekers at the Gashora transit centre south of Kigali, most of whom hail from Somalia, Sudan and Eritrea, according to CGTN Africa.
Continue reading...Pregnant women and children among dozens forced into perilous Mediterranean crossing to escape overcrowded centre in Libya
Dozens of people who were put under pressure to leave a failing EU-funded UN refugee agency centre in Tripoli have used smugglers to cross the sea to Italy in the last month, according to refugees and aid workers.
One Somali man who spoke to the Guardian said he was among a group of more than 50 who left Libya in November and December and were rescued by ships including the Ocean Viking, the Médecins Sans Frontières and SOS Méditerranée ship, in the Mediterranean. He is now in Italy.
Continue reading...London will be the setting for a January exhibition and auction of art by people living in Moria camp, on the Greek island of Lesbos. The proceeds will go to the Hope Project, an initiative that promotes greater dignity for refugees and aims to transform the way they are seen
• Nine paintings will be exhibited in St James’s Church, Piccadilly, from 6 to 17 January 2020, while a charity auction will take place at Christie’s on 13 January
Continue reading...While heavy snow makes life unbearable for migrants, a dangerous nightly ‘game’ has led to alleged assault and injury
Photography by Alessio Mamo
In a room in the intensive therapy unit of a hospital in the port city of Rijeka, Croatia, Farouk fights for his life.
The 18-year-old Afghan has life-threatening injuries to his thorax and abdomen. On 16 November, in the woods around Tuhobić, a Croatian police officer shot Farouk – who, with dozens of other migrants, was attempting to cross the border with Slovenia.
Continue reading...Gulf state says it plans to end kafala system in response to criticism of migrant workers’ treatment
The Qatari official in charge of organising the most controversial edition of the football World Cup since the tournament’s inception in 1930 has claimed that criticism of his country’s treatment of migrant workers will have a ripple effect that will improve regional labour standards.
The 2022 World Cup has been dogged by criticism of its host’s kafala system, which ties migrant workers to so-called sponsorship by their employer, meaning they cannot move jobs or leave the country without the employer’s approval.
Continue reading...Exiled Somali Kamil Ahmed says her job at Gargaar FM is more important than ever as the threat of closure hangs over the camp
Sitting in a small shipping container, Kamil Ahmed, 20, prepares to begin her live radio show.
“I feel like the whole community is waiting for me,” the only female reporter at the station says, flicking through her notebook.
Continue reading...With rape and domestic abuse endemic in the lawless refugee camp, safe spaces have been set up to help the women affected
In a small, dark hut within the world’s largest refugee settlement, a fan hums quietly as Faizal speaks. He says that last month his 12-year-old sister was raped here in their home. The little girl sits in silence beside him wearing a pink headscarf and red dress.
Rape is endemic in the camp in Cox’s Bazar. Although the exact number of victims is unknown, many Rohingya women who experienced rape and torture fleeing Myanmar report facing sexual violence again in their new home.
Continue reading...Government announces plans to relocate 20,000 people from islands of Lesbos, Chios and Samos by early 2020
Greece has announced plans to close its three largest migrant camps and replace them with facilities on the mainland that campaigners have likened to detention centres.
People living in overcrowded camps on the islands of Lesbos, Chios and Samos will be moved to closed complexes for identification, relocation and deportation with a capacity of at least 5,000 people each.
Continue reading...Separated from her family after an attempt to flee failed, Tahira is among a growing number of women left struggling and vulnerable in a country where lone mothers are harshly judged
On a bitterly cold day, Tahira* sits in her rented room in Kabul. She has a husband and three young children, but the last time the family were all together was in 2018 – the day they tried to escape Afghanistan.
Insecurity in their town in Maidan Wardak province led Tahira, 27, to try to flee to Turkey, via Iran, with her family. But when the time came, only her husband, son and seven-year-old daughter made it.
Continue reading...