Category Archives: Immigration and asylum

After rightwing attacks on rescues, UK lifeboat charity has record fundraising year

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The Royal National Lifeboat Institution has had ‘significant’ increase in annual donations after it went to the aid of asylum seekers

The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) is on course for the highest annual fundraising total in its near 200-year history. Donations swelled after the charity attracted huge public support following rightwing attacks for helping save the lives of asylum seekers at risk of drowning in the Channel.

The RNLI said it has received a significant increase in support, with online donations rising by 50% this year.

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Kindertransport Britons urge UK to reopen safe routes for refugees

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Alf Dubs, Stephanie Shirley and Erich Reich call for safe and legal paths for refugees in Europe to find safety

Surviving members of the Kindertransport have urged the government to reopen safe routes for refugees in Europe, especially children, trying to reach the UK or risk more tragedies occurring in the Channel.

Alf Dubs, Stephanie Shirley and Erich Reich, who all arrived in the UK between 1938 and 1939 as child refugees on the Kindertransport, an initiative set up to rescue nearly 10,000 Jewish child refugees before the second world war, said the UK was losing its moral authority in the world and urged the government to change tack.

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‘Good anti-sinking capacity, lifejacket optional’: journey of a ‘refugee boat’

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From a factory in China to an English beach, rubber dinghies are acquired by people-smugglers to transport desperate people


Against the backdrop of Dunkirk’s busy port with its cranes and smoke, a collapsed, grey rubber dinghy lies on the shore, abandoned and washed in by the tide.

It is one of the many haunting signs of the thousands of desperate people who have attempted to cross the Channel from northern France.

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Suicidal asylum-seekers subjected to ‘dangerous’ use of force by guards at detention centre

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Observer investigation finds officers without the usual certification used risky restraint techniques at Brook House

Suicidal asylum seekers were subject to force by guards who the Home Office allowed to remain on duty despite being “effectively uncertified” in the safe use of restraint techniques, according to internal documents charting conditions inside one of the UK’s most controversial immigration centres.

Experts say the department endangered lives last year by deploying custody staff whose training in the safe use of force had expired, as it detained hundreds of people who had crossed the Channel in a fast-track scheme to remove them.

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Border Force picks up 67 people after Christmas Day attempt to cross Channel

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Agents step in after incident involving two small boats in early hours of morning

UK authorities have rescued 67 people who were attempting to cross the Channel on Christmas Day.

Border Force agents took a group of people to Dover in Kent in the early hours of Saturday, after an incident involving two small boats.

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The best of the long read in 2021

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Our 20 favourite pieces of the year

After growing up in a Zimbabwe convulsed by the legacy of colonialism, when I got to Oxford I realised how many British people still failed to see how empire had shaped lives like mine – as well as their own

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Asylum-seeking children in UK at risk of self-harm and suicide, charities warn

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Figures reveal child refugees who arrived on their own are waiting longer than adults for Home Office decision

Children who have arrived in the UK on their own to seek asylum are at risk of self-harm and dying by suicide, according to 25 child and migrant rights organisations, as figures reveal they are waiting longer than adults for a decision on their claim.

The warning, in a letter to safeguarding institutions, including the children’s commissioner and the chief social worker, said the risk was “exacerbated by Home Office failures to decide the children’s asylum claims”.

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org.

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‘The need is still there’: last young refugees arrive in UK as family reunion route closes

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Activists lament that a safe, legal way into Britain has closed with Brexit, when stranded children need it as much as ever

‘When I was a child in Afghanistan I loved to watch my uncle play chess. Now I have joined the local club here.” Samir is grinning as he talks about settling into life on England’s south coast. “I’m very happy here, just being with my family, going for walks to look at the Christmas lights. It’s really beautiful.”

After arriving in Greece alone two years ago, when he was just 16, and spending many months homeless and terrified in the port city of Patras, Samir recently made a journey that most refugees can only dream about. He said goodbye to the friends he had made in a camp for unaccompanied minors – other teenagers from Somalia, Iraq and Palestine – and travelled safely and legally to join his father and sister in the UK.

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More than 130 people rescued after becoming stranded in the Channel

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Makeshift vessels got into trouble attempting to make crossing from France to the UK

More than 130 people have been rescued after their makeshift vessels became stranded in the Channel as they tried to reach Britain from France, French authorities said.

Two navy vessels and two lifeboats brought the 138 refugees back to shore after authorities were informed on Thursday that “many boats trying to cross the Channel were in trouble”.

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France formally identifies 26 of the 27 people who died in Channel tragedy

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Authorities say mostly Iraqi Kurds drowned in the Channel dinghy incident, including a teenager and one child

French authorities have formally identified 26 out of 27 people who drowned last month in a Channel dinghy incident, with most of them being Kurds from Iraq.

A statement from the Paris prosecutor said that there were 17 men among the deceased aged 19-26, seven women aged 22-46, as well as a 16-year-old teenager and a child aged seven.

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Pregnant refugees not being seen by doctors for weeks after reaching UK

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Labour MP writes to Home Office raising concerns over treatment of at least five women being put up at hotel

The Home Office is facing demands for an inquiry after it was claimed that pregnant refugees are not being fed or examined by doctors or midwives after arriving in the UK.

A first-time mother who was 38 weeks pregnant was not seen by a doctor for several weeks after crossing the Channel, it is alleged. After the Iraqi Kurdish woman was examined, it emerged that she had a pathological fear of pregnancy, and the baby had a breech presentation.

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Macron accuses UK of not keeping its word on Brexit and fishing

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France willing to re-engage on Channel crossings, but UK economy relies on illegal labour, says president

Relations between France and Britain are strained because the current UK government does not honour its word, president Emmanuel Macron has said.

Macron accused London of failing to keep its word on Brexit and fishing licences, but said France was willing to re-engage in good faith, and called for “British re-engagement” over the “humanitarian question” of dangerous Channel crossings, after at least 27 migrants drowned trying to reach the British coast.

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Home Office urged to stop housing asylum seekers in barracks

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Housing survivors of torture or other serious forms of violence in barracks ‘harmful’, all-party report says

A cross-party group of parliamentarians is calling on the government to end its use of controversial barracks accommodation for people seeking asylum, in a new report published on Thursday.

The report also recommends the scrapping of government plans to expand barracks-style accommodation for up to 8,000 asylum seekers. It refers to accommodation, including Napier barracks in Kent, which is currently being used to house hundreds of asylum seekers, as “quasi-detention” due to visible security measures, surveillance, shared living quarters and isolation from the wider community.

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UK warned not to replicate Australia’s immigration detention centres

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Letter from detainees urges MPs not to back nationality and borders bill to be debated in parliament this week

Two former detainees in Australia’s notorious offshore immigration detention centres have issued a “dire warning” to UK parliamentarians ahead of a vote to replicate these centres this week.

They are urging MPs not to back the nationality and borders bill which will be debated in parliament on Tuesday and Wednesday. If passed into law in its current form it will diminish refugee protection. Large-scale reception centres are planned and the legislation includes a provision for housing asylum seekers offshore while their claims are considered.

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Lives lost at Europe’s borders and Afghan MPs in exile: human rights this fortnight – in pictures

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A roundup of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Mexico to Manila

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Tensions run high in Hastings over small boat arrivals

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While many in East Sussex town have rushed to help when refugees arrive on the beach, some are less welcoming

Ten days ago, people stood on the beach in Hastings and tried to prevent a lifeboat crew from going into the sea to rescue a group of refugees in a flimsy dinghy. According to a witness, they were shouting at the RNLI: “Don’t bring any more of those, we’re full up, that’s why we stopped our donations.”

Meanwhile, a group from the same town calling itself Hastings Supports Refugees has set up what is thought to be the first emergency response team run by volunteers to welcome the bedraggled, traumatised newcomers and provide them with hot food and drinks, dry clothes and a warm welcome as soon as they come ashore.

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Channel crossings are an English issue, says French minister

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UK accused of having a labour market akin to modern slavery that encourages people to make risky crossings

Senior French ministers have accused the UK of operating a labour market akin to slavery and called on London to open safe routes for migrants, as the two governments continued to deflect blame for last week’s drownings in the Channel.

The criticism came hours after France’s interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, held a crisis meeting with European ministers and border agencies to discuss the migrant emergency around the Channel ports.

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British MPs call for law changes to help young Hongkongers flee to UK

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Figures show that 93% of those charged over protests are under 25 and many therefore not eligible to access current UK visa scheme

More than nine in 10 people who have faced protest charges in Hong Kong are too young to access a UK visa scheme dedicated to helping Hongkongers flee to Britain, according to advocates and MPs calling for new laws to assist them.

The release of the figures on Sunday by the advocacy group Hong Kong Watch comes before a parliamentary debate this week on proposed migration law amendments that would widen the pathway for people with British national (overseas) (BNO) status to resettle in the UK.

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UK’s ‘double talk’ on Channel crisis must stop, says French interior minister

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Exclusive: Gérald Darmanin says UK ministers must stop saying one thing in private while insulting his country in public

The French interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, has said British ministers including his counterpart, Priti Patel, should stop saying one thing in private while insulting his country in public if there is to be a solution to the crisis in the Channel.

In an interview with the Guardian, Darmanin strongly criticised what he called “double talk” coming out of London and said France was not a “vassal” of the UK.

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‘He’s missing’: anxious wait in Calais camps for news on Channel victims

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In northern France, friends and relatives of those who died in the tragic crossing on Wednesday are desperate for answers

On Saturday Gharib Ahmed spent five hours outside the police station in Calais, desperately waiting for news. “It was so cold. There was no answer,” he said. Ahmed was seeking confirmation that his brother-in-law Twana Mamand was one of 27 people who died in the Channel on Wednesday after the flimsy dinghy taking them to the UK sank. “I want to see his body. I have to understand,” Ahmed told the Guardian.

Relatives of the mostly Iraqi Kurds who perished in the world’s busiest shipping lane spent the weekend in a state of anxiety and confusion. Ahmed said he last heard from his brother-in-law at 3am on Wednesday, around the time Twana set off in darkness from a beach near Dunkirk. After two days of silence, Ahmed travelled with his wife, Kale Mamand – Twana’s sister – from their home in London to northern France, arriving on Friday night.

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