Millions of Syrian refugees face fight to reclaim homes, says human rights group

Report by Syrian Network for Human Rights details laws giving Assad’s government powers to seize land

As many as 14 million Syrians face a near insurmountable barrier to returning to their homes after the government passed laws giving the state power to seize their land and property, according to a report by the Syrian Network for Human Rights.

The report, shared with the Guardian, urged the UN high commissioner for refugees to highlight the laws as one of the main obstacles to refugees returning home.

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Anger over plan to persuade homeless people to leave Paris before Olympics

Moving people including asylum seekers to temporary regional centres would free up accommodation

Local politicians and charities in France have expressed concerns about a French government plan to encourage thousands of homeless people and asylum seekers to leave the Paris area before next year’s Olympic Games and move to other regions of the country to free up accommodation in the capital.

The news agency Agence France-Presse reported that since mid-March, the government has asked local prefects to create temporary reception centres in every French region except the north and Corsica, which would free up space in hotels normally used as emergency accommodation centres in and around Paris.

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UK funding cuts to east Africa ‘insulting and shortsighted’, say aid organisations

NGOs dismayed at reduction in Britain’s contribution as crisis-hit region faces challenges from drought, rising prices and conflict

The UK has been accused of taking the “insulting and shortsighted” decision to cut humanitarian aid to east Africa at a time of chronic drought, conflict and rising food prices.

At a United Nations pledging conference in New York on Wednesday, which the UK is co-chairing, Andrew Mitchell, the UK’s international development minister, announced a humanitarian aid package to the region of £143m.

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Race against time to stop ‘humanitarian disaster’ among Sudan refugees in Chad

Coming rainy season threatens 80,000 living in ‘heartbreaking’ conditions in vulnerable border region after fleeing war at home

Tens of thousands of Sudanese refugees, many of them children, who have crossed the border into Chad risk a “major humanitarian disaster” when the rainy season begins within weeks, a Red Cross official has warned.

About 80,000 people have sought refuge in the country to the west of Sudan as weeks of fighting between two warring generals forces hundreds of thousands from their homes.

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Hundreds of refugees in Malawi rounded up and sent to camps

Army brought in to forcibly relocate refugees from the capital, despite pleas from human rights organisations

Hundreds of refugees and asylum seekers in Malawi have been forcibly relocated from the capital, Lilongwe, to an overcrowded government camp.

Over the past week, more than 300 refugees, including 100 children, have been rounded up and sent to Dzaleka camp, about 30 miles away.

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Justin Welby proposes amendments to ‘morally unacceptable’ illegal migration bill

Archbishop of Canterbury calls on ministers to implement strategies on human trafficking and the refugee crisis

The archbishop of Canterbury has proposed two amendments to the government’s flagship illegal migration bill that he had earlier deemed “morally unacceptable”.

With the controversial plans to enter the committee stage in the House of Lords on Wednesday, Justin Welby called on ministers to implement 10-year strategies for tackling human trafficking and for an international collaboration to solving the refugee crises.

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Chelsea flower show garden built with asylum seekers brings ‘message of hope’

Choose Love garden uses materials found in refugee camps and plants that grow on migration routes

A centrepiece garden at this year’s Chelsea flower show has been built with the help of a team of asylum seekers with a design that recreates Europe’s migration routes and uses materials found in refugee camps.

The Choose Love garden, named after a charity working with displaced people, uses the sustainable “superadobe” building technique found in camp architecture.

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UN denied access to Rohingya refugee camps after Cyclone Mocha

UNHCR says Myanmar government has refused to allow it to distribute health supplies in Sittwe, where an estimated 90% of Rohingya homes have been destroyed

UN staff say they have been denied access to help thousands of Rohingya living in displacement camps in Myanmar who are in urgent need of food, medicine and shelter in the aftermath of Cyclone Mocha, which struck the west of the country on Sunday.

People living in Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine state, said they estimated that about 90% of homes of Rohingya people had been destroyed and more than 100 people killed when winds of more than 150 miles an hour hit the region. However, the refugee agency UNHCR said the Myanmar government has refused access to the camps in Sittwe, home to about 100,000 people. “As yet, UNHCR has not been granted access to carry out needs assessments.”

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UK will end up like Russia if it ignores European court of human rights obligations, Sunak told – as it happened

President of Council of Europe’s parliamentary assembly says UK faces exclusion if it choses to ignore its obligations. This live blog is now closed

Today the BBC is reporting that Javad Marandi, a businessman whose foreign companies were part of a global money laundering investigation, is a major donor to the Conservative party. Marandi, who strongly denies wrongdoing and who is not subject to criminal sanctions, has been named after losing a legal battle with the BBC to protect his anonymity.

There will be an urgent question on the case at 12.30pm, tabled by the SNP MP Alison Thewliss. According to the Commons authorities, she has tabled a question asking a Home Office minister to make a statement “on the implications of the National Crime Agency’s investigation into Mr Javad Marandi”.

Rishi Sunak’s food summit is little more than a stunt to hide years of inaction from his government.

The Tories’ shambolic handling of food security has resulted in huge vegetable price increases across the country.

No ifs, no buts, supermarkets must cut these basic prices now.

Rishi Sunak needs to grow a spine and stand up for struggling families and pensioners by demanding supermarkets slash prices. They have no excuses, wholesale prices are down, yet food prices are up, with their profits soaring.

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Recreate UK’s Homes for Ukraine scheme for Sudan refugees, urges one of plan’s architects

Exclusive: Krish Kandiah wants same help given to Ukrainians offered to Sudanese families fleeing civil war

One of the architects of Britain’s Homes for Ukraine scheme is calling on the government to replicate the programme for refugees from Sudan.

Dr Krish Kandiah, the director of the Sanctuary Foundation, which was instrumental in matching many British hosts with Ukrainian refugees, said he wanted the country to show the “same generosity of spirit” to those fleeing war in Sudan as it did to Ukrainians.

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Cyclone Mocha threatens world’s largest refugee camp on Myanmar-Bangladesh border

Predicted to make landfall on Sunday, preparations are under way for a partial evacuation of the camp in Cox’s Bazar

Tropical cyclone Mocha intensified to become “very dangerous”, the World Meteorological Organisation has said, warning of violent winds, floods and possible landslides in Bangladesh which could hit the world’s biggest refugee camp in Cox’s bazar.

Cyclone Mocha is predicted to make landfall on Sunday near the Bangladesh-Myanmar border, according to India’s meteorological office, packing winds of up to 175km/h (108mph).

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Greek PM hails ‘tough but fair’ migration policy on election trail

Kyriakos Mitsotakis says on visit to Lesbos he has kept his promise to protect land and sea borders

Less than 10 days before Greeks go to the polls, the prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, has sought to emphasise the impact of his centre-right government’s “tough but fair” migration policy.

In a campaign trip to Lesbos, the Aegean island bearing the brunt of Europe-bound migratory flows, the leader claimed he had kept his promise to protect land and sea borders, with the arrival of asylum seekers radically reduced.

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Archbishop of Canterbury’s attack on illegal migration bill ‘wrong on both counts’, says minister – as it happened

Justin Welby says bill is ‘morally unacceptable’ and rules on protection of refugees are not ‘inconvenient obstructions’. This live blog is closed

In the House of Lords peers are just starting to debate the second reading of the illegal migration bill.

Simon Murray, aka Lord Murray of Blidworth, is opening the debate. He is a lawyer who was made a Home Office minister, and a peer, when Liz Truss was PM.

We now face a perfect storm of factors driving more people into homelessness while giving us fewer good options to help them when they do. These factors include soaring private rents (above the benefit cap), private landlords leaving the sector, a national shortage of affordable housing, and a backlog of court cases after Covid-relating housing support was removed. At the same time, we have a cost-of-living crisis which is reducing real-term incomes and putting further strain on relationships.

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Archbishop of Canterbury to criticise small boats bill in House of Lords

Justin Welby to join peers condemning measures that seek to criminalise people seeking refuge in UK

The archbishop of Canterbury will make a rare intervention in the House of Lords to join dozens of peers condemning the government’s flagship asylum bill.

Justin Welby will argue against measures championed by Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman that seek to criminalise people seeking refuge in the UK if they arrive on small boats.

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Germany’s regional leaders demand more financial support for refugees

Leaders of country’s 16 states will call on Chancellor Scholz to increase daily rate for feeding, housing and schooling asylum seekers

German lawmakers are at loggerheads over how to manage the number of refugees coming into the country, with regional leaders calling on the government to provide more financial support.

On Wednesday, the leaders of Germany’s 16 states will meet Olaf Scholz, the chancellor, in Berlin, and call on him to ensure that the federal government takes on more responsibility for immigration, including increasing the daily rate allocated to cover the costs of individuals.

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Lone child refugees stranded in Sudan may ‘risk travelling to UK on small boats’

Charities say British government not doing enough to facilitate family reunions through available safe and legal route

Lone child refugees stranded in Sudan could be forced to travel to the UK in small boats because British ministers are not helping those entitled to family reunion to escape the fighting, charities have warned.

Asylum seekers granted refugee status in the UK are able to apply to bring their spouse, children or younger siblings – one of the few safe and legal routes open to refugees.

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Home Office accused of being ‘unashamedly racist’ towards Sudanese

Experts believe the UK has adopted a segregated immigration policy which favours those fleeing Ukraine

The Home Office has been accused of operating an “unashamedly racist” refugee system after refusing to offer people fleeing fighting in Sudan a safe and legal route to the UK, in stark contrast to the schemes offered to those escaping the war in Ukraine.

With the final evacuation flight from Khartoum to the UK having left last week, a lack of options from the UK government has crystallised concern that it has adopted a segregated immigration policy. No safe and legal routes have been made available to help Sudanese refugees flee and there is no sign of an announcement outlining a new scheme to deal with the fallout of the conflict.

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Sudan’s neighbours have little to offer refugees, warns UN

Thousands of Sudanese are crossing borders into countries already severely stressed by drought, conflicts and food insecurity, say UN officials

The UN is in a race against time to get food supplies to Sudanese refugees crossing the border into Chad before the rainy season begins, as neighbouring countries struggle to cope with the numbers of people fleeing the civil war.

More than 110,000 people are now estimated to have crossed into other countries as patchy ceasefires fail to stop deadly clashes between Sudanese army troops and a paramilitary rival that have killed hundreds and forced more than 330,000 from their homes.

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‘Not safe for us’: Sudanese in north Africa warn fleeing relatives of danger

People who sought route to Europe before fighting erupted in Khartoum speak of police brutality, torture and homelessness

Ever since fighting erupted in his home town of Nyala, the state capital of South Darfur in Sudan, in mid-April, Khaled’s mobile phone has not stopped ringing. Family members, friends and acquaintances want to know how to reach north Africa and which country is best for departing for Europe.

The 17-year-old, currently living in the Tunisian capital, Tunis, wishes he could tell them that the journey is simple and that countries like Tunisia and Libya are welcoming and safe.

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Stricken dinghy was not rescued after it entered UK waters, maritime logs reveal

Boat with 38 people onboard got into difficulty in Channel and left to drift back towards France, FOI request shows

A boat carrying 38 people, including children, that got into difficulty crossing the Channel was not rescued when it reached UK waters but was instead allowed to drift back towards France, according to internal maritime logs.

Ministry of Defence officials, who were managing small boats in the Channel at the time, told the Guardian in January that they disputed that the stricken dinghy had entered UK waters.

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