Category Archives: Refugees

Eritrea accuses Shabana Mahmood of ‘political gimmick’ over visa ban threat

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Home secretary says she will block all Eritreans from UK unless a returns deal is agreed for rejected asylum seekers and criminals

Shabana Mahmood has been accused of launching a “perfunctory political gimmick” by the Eritrean government in a row over the return of rejected asylum seekers and criminals.

After the home secretary threatened to block all Eritreans from entering the UK unless a returns deal was agreed, the country’s embassy claimed the UK had failed to engage in “meaningful and appropriate” dialogue.

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Burnham says ‘public will be the boss’ in any future decision about closer relationship with the EU – as it happened

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The prime minister tells MPs the next summit with the EU will be held on 20 November

Burnham to urge MPs to embrace closer ties with EU

Zia Yusuf, Reform UK’s home affairs spokesperson, is speaking now. He started his speech with an account of a 73-year-old woman dying in North Wales after having to wait 23 hours for an ambulance, and he sought to link this to immigration.

He said:

The Royal College of Emergency Medicine estimates that 15,000 people across Britain died last year due to excess wait times for emergency treatment. That’s 300 people a week, 300 lives destroyed, 300 families devastated.

And that number has increased tenfold over the last decade. This is a moral outrage, and it is a direct result of decisions made by Tory and Labour governments.

I don’t think that’s because he wants to have a fight over the European Union. I think that’s because he knows what we’re talking about today impacts hard in what is known as the red wall.

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People smugglers are still profiting from small boats. Can the UK fix the crisis?

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As ‘one in, one out’ scheme ends, refugees still want to cross the Channel despite French police aggression and hostile welcomes

The smuggler works quickly. Using a small shovel, he digs up a dinghy buried in a sand dune on a beach not far from Boulogne-sur-Mer, assembles it and affixes a motor in record time.

“I never saw anyone work like this,” says Amad, from Iraq, one of a group of about 30 asylum seekers waiting to cross the Channel. “The UK government wants to stop the smugglers, but they are smart. They have plan A, plan B and plan C, so there is always a way for them to get people across this sea. For as long as asylum seekers will pay them, there is too much money involved for them to give up.”

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UK accused of giving people of Gaza false hope over new refugee safe route

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Only ‘very small number’ of people already in Lebanon or Jordan will be referred, says organisation running scheme

The Home Office is facing claims it gave false hope to the people of Gaza after it emerged that a new safe route for Palestinian refugees will only be open to those who have already escaped to Lebanon or Jordan.

Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, announced the reopening of a resettlement scheme for refugees at Labour’s annual conference last month. A statement from her department said: “Around one in four referrals will be for Afghan women and girls and Palestinian refugees, fleeing war and persecution.”

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French court jails six men for manslaughter over mass drowning in Channel

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Seven others found guilty of lesser charges in connection to incident in 2021 when inflatable dinghy sank killing at least 27 people with four more still missing

A Paris court has jailed six ⁠men for manslaughter over the deaths of at least 27 people in the worst mass drowning on record from a small-boat crossing in the Channel.

Seven other men were ⁠found guilty of lesser smuggling charges with varying degrees of seriousness, including facilitating illegal immigration as part of ⁠an organised gang and criminal conspiracy.

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Three people dead, including a child, in attempt to cross Channel to UK

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Official says deaths – and dozens of injuries – were probably caused by crushing on boat carrying 105 people

A 10-year-old child and two women died ⁠attempting ​to cross the Channel on Monday, French authorities have said.

Their deaths and the injuries of dozens of others in a large dinghy were probably caused by crushing, according to a French official.

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UK to open new refugee resettlement routes for Afghan women and Palestinians

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Exclusive: Move by Shabana Mahmood comes after closure of Afghan scheme last year but experts say numbers too small to deter Channel crossings

Shabana Mahmood will announce a new legal route for refugees that prioritises Afghan women and girls and Palestinians, unfreezing a scheme that will put the most vulnerable refugees on a faster path to permanent status.

The change marks a shift in Mahmood’s approach to asylum seekers after the abrupt closure of the Afghan resettlement scheme last year and changes that will keep refugee status under constant review for two decades.

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Ukrainians in UK fear homelessness over host scheme funding cuts

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Monthly ‘thank you’ payments for people hosting refugees to be cut from £350 to £100 from next year

Ukrainian refugees in the UK fear they could be left homeless after the government quietly axed 70% of funding for hosts of the Homes for Ukraine scheme, reducing monthly “thank you” payments to them from £350 to £100.

The scheme was launched after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and has provided support for 181,000 of the 234,000 Ukrainians who have since sought sanctuary in the UK.

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Freedom oppressed: the journalists caught up in Trump’s ICE crackdown

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Media workers are grappling with increasingly volatile press climate in US, with some detained and even deported

As hundreds of masked and armed US federal agents besieged the streets of Minneapolis, turning the midwestern city into the frontline of the Trump administration’s unprecedented crackdown on immigration, the independent photographer John Abernathy was documenting one of the protests that had become a daily occurrence when Immigration and Customs Enforcement tackled him.

A photograph of him on the ground, pepper spray running down his face, captured the violence with which ICE agents had for weeks treated immigrants and the thousands of US citizens who had come to their defence. It was also a stark reminder that journalists were not immune to the agency’s aggressive tactics.

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UK paying £56,000 for each person returned to France under ‘one in one out’ scheme

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Home secretary defends cost, saying it is about the same or cheaper than putting someone up in a hotel for a year

The government’s “one in, one out” deal is costing about £56,000 for every person sent back to France, Shabana Mahmood has told MPs.

The home secretary disclosed the figure as she was questioned by the home affairs select committee over whether the scheme was delivering value for taxpayers.

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UK paying £56,000 for each person returned to France under ‘one in one out’ scheme

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Home secretary defends cost, saying it is about the same or cheaper than putting someone up in a hotel for a year

The government’s “one in, one out” deal is costing about £56,000 for every person sent back to France, Shabana Mahmood has told MPs.

The home secretary disclosed the figure as she was questioned by the home affairs select committee over whether the scheme was delivering value for taxpayers.

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UK paying £56,000 for each person returned to France under ‘one in one out’ scheme

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Home secretary defends cost, saying it is about the same or cheaper than putting someone up in a hotel for a year

The government’s “one in, one out” deal is costing about £56,000 for every person sent back to France, Shabana Mahmood has told MPs.

The home secretary disclosed the figure as she was questioned by the home affairs select committee over whether the scheme was delivering value for taxpayers.

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UK paying £56,000 for each person returned to France under ‘one in one out’ scheme

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Home secretary defends cost, saying it is about the same or cheaper than putting someone up in a hotel for a year

The government’s “one in, one out” deal is costing about £56,000 for every person sent back to France, Shabana Mahmood has told MPs.

The home secretary disclosed the figure as she was questioned by the home affairs select committee over whether the scheme was delivering value for taxpayers.

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UK paying £56,000 for each person returned to France under ‘one in one out’ scheme

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Home secretary defends cost, saying it is about the same or cheaper than putting someone up in a hotel for a year

The government’s “one in, one out” deal is costing about £56,000 for every person sent back to France, Shabana Mahmood has told MPs.

The home secretary disclosed the figure as she was questioned by the home affairs select committee over whether the scheme was delivering value for taxpayers.

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UK paying £56,000 for each person returned to France under ‘one in one out’ scheme

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Home secretary defends cost, saying it is about the same or cheaper than putting someone up in a hotel for a year

The government’s “one in, one out” deal is costing about £56,000 for every person sent back to France, Shabana Mahmood has told MPs.

The home secretary disclosed the figure as she was questioned by the home affairs select committee over whether the scheme was delivering value for taxpayers.

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‘I believed the hype’: the white South Africans denied refugee status in the US

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Drive to save thousands of Afrikaners from false claims of ‘white genocide’ appears to show signs of slowing

When Donald Trump announced in February 2025 that the US would accept Afrikaners from South Africa as refugees, many white South Africans who believed that they were victims of racism in their country thought that their prayers had been answered.

However, in the past few months, dozens of applicants to the refugee programme have been rejected, with many left dismayed and confused as to why they would be left to face what Trump has falsely claimed is a “white genocide” in South Africa.

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Police release images of six men sought after violent disorder in Portsmouth

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Hampshire and Isle of Wight force says it wants to speak to men in connection with anti-migrant unrest that left seven officers injured

Police have released images of six men they would like to speak to after violent disorder in Portsmouth last week that left seven officers injured.

About 200 people gathered at Eastney Marina on Sunday night after a small boat carrying asylum seekers arrived on the south coast having crossed the Channel. The activists dispersed the following day in the early hours.

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Nearly 50,000 Yemeni civilians flee as Houthis advance along Red Sea coast

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Global struggle for control of Bab al-Mandab strait threatens to turn Yemen’s on-off conflict into a forever war

Nearly 50,000 people have fled a sudden advance by Houthi forces in western Yemen, with entire villages emptied and families trapped near frontline fighting with depleting food supplies, according to aid workers.

Civilians in the Middle East’s poorest country have found themselves victims of a global struggle for control over one of the most important shipping routes in the world, which threatens to turn Yemen’s on-off conflict into a forever war.

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Gaza refugee says sister-in-law ‘would be alive’ if Home Office had let her come to UK

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Anwar, who lives in Glasgow, says Home Office refused visa application despite Maryam having cancer

A man living in the UK has said he believes his sister-in-law who died from cancer in Gaza would still be alive today if the Home Office had agreed to bring her and her family to Britain.

Anwar, who lives in Glasgow, fled Gaza in 2020 and was granted refugee status in the UK in 2021. After the destruction of large areas of Gaza by Israeli forces following the Hamas attacks on Israel in October 2023, he applied to bring his brother Hassan, Hassan’s wife, Maryam, their two young children and other family members to the UK in October 2025. He said the Home Office rejected their application.

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Spain to allow 500 children in Ceuta to go to mainland in immigration U-turn

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Madrid government changes stance after previously saying anyone who entered territory illegally would be sent back

The Spanish government has U-turned and said it will allow 500 migrant children in Ceuta to relocate to the mainland.

The majority of the estimated 70,000 people who crossed into Ceuta – a Spanish territory on the coast of north Africa – on 30 July have returned to Morocco. However, under Spanish law, the state has a duty of care to young, unaccompanied migrants until they reach the age of 18.

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