Two refugees’ efforts to reach Dover reflect persecution in Sudan and rising tensions over migrants in Europe
On the night he attempted to cross the Channel, Abdulfatah Hamdallah left his blanket and bicycle behind at the camp in Calais.
They were the only possessions he would leave behind: his backpack was lost at sea when he drowned attempting to make the perilous crossing over the Dover Strait to England in a dinghy, with shovels for oars.
Continue reading...Priti Patel’s recognition of a child’s humanity in death is hollow when he was stripped of it in life by cruel border policies
The human cost of the government’s border policies has been made appallingly and painfully real: a 16-year-old boy from Sudan was found dead on a beach near Calais on Wednesday after trying to make it across the Channel. When people die trying to cross borders, the response from politicians is almost always the same: they say they are shocked and saddened and then carry on as usual. Yesterday was no different.
Related: Calais-based volunteers condemn UK for death of Sudanese teenager
Continue reading...Sudanese teenager, found near Calais, attempted crossing with another boy in inflatable dinghy
A Sudanese teenager who disappeared at sea has been found dead on a beach near Calais on Wednesday morning, after trying to cross the Channel with another boy in an inflatable dinghy using shovels for oars.
The French citizenship minister, Marlène Schiappa, said the body was found on the beach of Sangatte, near to the former site of the notorious “jungle” refugee camp, and was believed to be that of a 16-year-old boy, although some uncertainty remains over his age while authorities are continuing to investigate the matter.
Continue reading...Eight Fijian-born soldiers went public five months ago and have yet to receive positive response
Eight Fijian-born soldiers who served with the British army in Iraq and Afghanistan are seeking a judicial review against the Ministry of Defence and Home Office, saying bureaucratic errors have made them illegal immigrants in the country for which they once served.
The group of Commonwealth veterans have been forced to go to court five months after first going public because neither Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, nor Priti Patel, the home secretary, have yet responded positively to their initial complaint or properly reviewed their cases.
Continue reading...Asylum seekers give accounts of injuries, as Priti Patel says many refugees feel France is racist
Asylum seekers in the UK and France have described injuries they have received at the hands of French police, as Priti Patel said many were making the perilous journey across the Channel because they believe France is racist.
The home secretary made her comments in a conference call with Conservative MPs concerned about the recent surge in numbers attempting the voyage in small boats.
Continue reading...Priti Patel risks replicating Home Office failings that led to scandal, victims and human rights campaigners warn
Survivors of the Windrush scandal have attacked the home secretary, saying her approach to the Channel migrant crossings is creating “the same set of conditions” that led to the government victimising the children of Commonwealth immigrants.
A letter to Priti Patel from 100 prominent refugee and human rights campaigners, including members of the Windrush generation, warns that the “pattern of ignoring expert advice, failing to engage with civil society and branding migrants as criminal” replicates Home Office failings that caused the 2018 Windrush scandal.
Continue reading...Man who was granted injunction due to risk of suicide says he sustained an injury during attempted removal
An asylum seeker who crossed the Channel to the UK on a small boat claims he was forced out of his cell in a detention centre by officers who wanted to put him on a flight even though a judge had halted his removal hours earlier, the Guardian has learned.
He was restrained and sustained an injury during the attempted removal in the early hours of Wednesday morning by officers unaware of the high court decision.
Continue reading...More families arrive in Dunkirk each day and they would rather sleep in woods than seek asylum in France
“They are kids, so they are always playing. Like children in the UK play mums and dads or doctors and nurses, our children will re-enact boat crossings, getting patted down by the police, going to food distributions, meeting smugglers. Because one of the way parents safeguard their children is to present attempted border crossings as an adventure.”
In a nature reserve near Dunkirk, Caia Fallowfield runs a play project for migrant children who live among the trees with no running water or toilets. These are the children who vanish overnight off the French coast and reappear on the front pages of British newspapers, being pulled out of dinghies in Dover, often cold, wet and frightened.
Continue reading...Natacha Bouchart tells PM sending Navy ships into French waters is ‘a declaration of maritime war’
The mayor of the French port city of Calais has told Boris Johnson to “calm down” and change strategy in dealing with migrants crossing from France.
“I consider Boris Johnson’s pronouncements to be a provocation,” said Natacha Bouchart, mayor of the town that is a main embarkation point for the small, overcrowded migrant boats seeking to cross the Channel this summer.
Continue reading...Children’s groups call for meal provision to extend to families barred from UK state support
Thousands of children from migrant families are at risk of hunger when schools reopen in the UK unless the free meal provision is extended, according to a group of 60 organisations.
The Children’s Society, Action for Children, Project 17 and Unison are among the organisations that have written to the education secretary, Gavin Williamson, calling on him to extend free school meals to pupils from low-income migrant families classed as having “no recourse to public funds”.
Continue reading...Home Office says 14 people were flown out, while 19 of those due to be removed had their tickets deferred
A charter flight to remove asylum seekers who recently arrived in the UK on small boats took off on Wednesday morning carrying 14 people, the Home Office said, despite last-minute high court actions and other interventions just hours before takeoff.
Nineteen people due to fly did not board the plane. The Home Office said 14 people were placed on the charter flight destined for France and Germany.
Continue reading...Live footage of people crossing Channel to UK is like ‘grotesque reality TV’, says MP
Britain’s television news broadcasters have been criticised by opposition MPs and campaigners over their coverage of migrants crossing the Channel, with claims that some of their reports dehumanise those taking the risk to make the journey.
Footage of Sky News and BBC Breakfast teams approaching and filming small boats trying to navigate the busy waters of the Dover strait was widely condemned on social media. The Labour MP Zarah Sultana said: “We should ensure people don’t drown crossing the Channel, not film them as if it were some grotesque reality TV show.”
Continue reading...Home Office minister says measures being considered to make route ‘unviable’
The UK and France are working “at pace” on a new plan to put an end to people attempting to cross the Channel in small boats, a Home Office minister has said, as tensions rise over the British government’s approach to the unfolding crisis.
Following talks with officials in Paris, Chris Philp, minister for immigration compliance, conceded the French were doing a “great deal of work” and had intercepted more than 1,000 people attempting to reach England this year after days of loaded statements from the two nations.
Continue reading...PM hints at law change to make it easier to deport people who make dangerous voyage
Boris Johnson has branded attempts by people to cross the Channel in small boats as a “very bad and stupid and dangerous and criminal thing to do” and hinted at changing the law to make it easier to deport such arrivals.
Meanwhile, a French politician has warned that the UK’s decision to send in the Royal Navy “won’t change anything”, and a former Home Office official has said he was sceptical of the plans.
Continue reading...French and British ministers prepare to meet after 151 more people came ashore on Saturday
Tensions are mounting between the UK and France over migrant crossings in the Channel after the number of people who have reached UK shores in small boats this year surpassed 4,000.
Families with young children were among hundreds of people who came ashore near Dover this weekend, including 151 on Saturday, the Home Office confirmed.
Continue reading...Home Office asked for patrols after saying migrants should face ‘real consequences’
Alarm is growing over UK proposals to introduce hardline measures to discourage refugees and illegal migrants from seeking sanctuary after the Ministry of Defence confirmed it was considering a Home Office request to deploy navy vessels in the Dover Straits.
It comes after the immigration minister, Chris Philp, called for migrants caught crossing the Channel to be fingerprinted and face “real consequences”, before a meeting next week with his French counterparts.
Continue reading...People arriving in Stansted tell of their surprise at having to now self-isolate for two weeks
People flying into Britain from Spain have attacked the government’s decision to impose a 14-day quarantine on people returning from the country, saying they were given no warning and that they felt safer in Spain.
As flights from Jerez, Alicante, Valencia and Palma landed in quick succession on Sunday afternoon at Stansted airport, passengers found themselves faced with the realisation that they were about to enter into an unexpected period of self-isolation.
Continue reading...Charity report finds many vulnerable women struggled to access food, water and soap
Women seeking asylum in the UK have described a significant increase in unsafe and unsanitary living conditions during the Covid-19 crisis, according to a report from a coalition of charities.
The report, published by Sisters Not Strangers, which collated evidence from nine charities supporting refugee and asylum-seeking women, paints a picture in which those living in the most precarious of circumstances have been made even more vulnerable during lockdown.
Continue reading...Appeal court partially overturns earlier ruling that backed Home Office
Shamima Begum, the 20-year-old woman who left east London as a schoolgirl to join Islamic State, should be allowed to return to the UK to challenge the Home Office’s decision to revoke her British citizenship in person.
The court of appeal partially overturned an earlier ruling by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (Siac) this year, which held that she had not been illegally rendered stateless while she was in Syria because she was entitled to Bangladeshi citizenship.
Continue reading...Minimum salary thresholds to also remain in place, presenting additional barrier
Care home staff have been excluded from a post-Brexit fast-track visa system for health workers, in a move that critics say could prove “an unmitigated disaster” and may increase the risk of spreading coronavirus.
Confirming there would be no special treatment for carers coming from the EU or the rest of the world, the government said it hoped Britons would fill a shortfall of around 120,000 workers, equating to 10% of all posts. Currently 17% of care jobs are filled by foreign citizens.
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