Category Archives: Refugees

‘A journey to nowhere’: mothers who fled war in Ukraine

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A series of portraits by the award-winning British photographer Lewis Khan from the Romanian border documents the stories of mothers and children who fled Ukraine as bombs and bullets rained down on their homes

The stories of four mothers fleeing Ukraine have highlighted the heart-breaking decisions that families have had to make during three months of war.

These compelling images also show what each family packed as they were forced to flee their homes. Some brought just a few changes of clothes, toys for their children and medical supplies, not knowing if they would be gone for weeks, months or even years.

Iryna*, with her 10-year-old daughter Nikolina*

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Over 500 Ukrainian children stuck waiting for UK visa decision

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Exclusive: sources say most have hosts ready under Homes for Ukraine scheme but have heard nothing

More than 500 Ukrainian children who fled the war without their parents are stuck waiting in limbo across Europe after applying to the Homes for Ukraine scheme, sources working closely with the Home Office say.

Most are teenagers who thought they would be eligible and have British families waiting to host them, but have heard nothing from the Home Office.

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‘You hear bullets, you run’: Congolese refugees stream over Uganda’s border

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As thousands flee the latest fighting in DRC to join 1.5m already in Uganda, the UN’s food aid agency is stretched as never before

The rain will determine what time Uwimana Nsengiyuava gets on the truck to Nyakabande transit centre, where Uganda is hosting 20,000 refugees who, like her, have fled fresh fighting in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Since March, up to 500 refugees a day have been silently streaming into the east African country via Kisoro, a picturesque district in south-west Uganda dotted with endless hills, streams and a lake.

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Turkey’s plan to forcibly relocate Syrian refugees gains momentum

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President Erdoğan presses on with move by leveraging his Nato veto over Nordic states’ accession

Turkey’s plan to expand a buffer zone inside northern Syria and use it to relocate large numbers of refugees has gained momentum after officials endorsed a military push that analysts from both countries say will force demographic shifts inside Syria.

Though a timeline has not been decided, military and political leaders have confirmed that an extensive operation is being prepared to move Kurdish populations away from Turkey’s southern border and assert Turkish control as deep as 18 miles into northern Syria.

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‘No humanity whatsoever’: pleas for UK to grant visa to autistic Ukrainian boy

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Timothy Tymoshenko was sent to Poland because of his distress but does not qualify for Homes for Ukraine scheme

A British man who has turned his Polish castle into a makeshift hotel for Ukrainian refugees has accused the UK government of showing “no humanity whatsoever” for not allowing a severely autistic teenager to come to live with an approved foster carer in Lancashire.

Pleas are mounting for compassion to be shown to Timothy Tymoshenko, 16, who fled the war in Ukraine without his parents. He is living with his 17-year-old brother, Yurii, in what was once a private palace for the prince-bishop of Wrocław in Piotrowice Nyskie, a tiny Polish village near the Czech border.

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Europe silent on plight of detainees in Libya, says migration chief

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Federico Soda said there needed to be ‘more condemnation’ of the conditions in state-run detention centres in Libya

Europe has been accused by a senior international official of acquiescence over the plight of thousands of migrants in Libya held in arbitrary detention in “deplorable conditions”.

Federico Soda, chief of mission at the International Organisation for Migration’s mission in Libya, said not enough was being done by outside actors to try to change the war-torn country’s “environment of arbitrary detention and deplorable conditions” for migrants.

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‘They won’t accept us’: Roma refugees forced to camp at Prague train station

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Humanitarian crisis grows as Ukrainian Roma families stuck at Czech train station say they are not treated like other refugees

Prague’s central railway station seems a picture of normality amid warm spring sunshine and the return of legions of tourists, who had been largely absent at the height of Covid. On the platform one weekday morning, two German sightseers gaze curiously at the statue of Sir Nicholas Winton, the British stockbroker who helped 669 mostly Jewish children escape from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia on the eve of the second world war.

Yet just yards away, hundreds of Roma people are sheltering in the only place available to them since they joined the millions of Ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion.

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‘The fear still lives with me’: three years at mercy of the hostile environment

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After an error on a visa application form, Sarah slipped into immigration limbo

Six years ago, when she was 24, Sarah received an unexpected letter from the Home Office telling her she faced arrest and removal from the UK within seven days. She was so terrified that she climbed out of the back window of the house where she was living, taking her seven-year-old son with her, and they became homeless.

Sarah, who asked for her real name not to be published, had been in the UK since she arrived in 1994 as a two-year-old refugee from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. She had attended primary and secondary school in the UK and was working and paying taxes in London, but her uncertain immigration status had not been resolved when she was a child. As an adult she was required every three years to pay fees of about £1,000 to apply for visas that would allow her to remain. An error on her 2016 application form meant the visa was refused, but the fees were not refunded and she could not afford to reapply, and she slipped into immigration limbo. Even now, 28 years after arriving in the UK, she is still battling to get British citizenship.

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Afghan female judge awarded prestigious human rights prize

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Fawzia Amini advocates for rights of Afghan women and girls from London hotel room she’s been stuck in for nine months

One of Afghanistan’s top female judges has been honoured with an international human rights award while she continues her work to advocate for her country’s women and girls from a London hotel.

Fawzia Amini, 48, fled Afghanistan last summer after the Taliban takeover of the country. She had been one of Afghanistan’s leading female judges, former head of the legal department at the Ministry of Women, senior judge in the supreme court, and head of the violence against women court.

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Rwanda plan challenged over alleged failure to identify risks for LGBTQ+ refugees

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Pre-action letter questions Home Office claims that east African country is ‘generally safe’

Priti Patel’s plan to send refugees on a one-way ticket to Rwanda is being legally challenged over the government’s alleged failure to identify risks facing vulnerable groups such as LGBTQ+ people.

A pre-action letter sent to the Home Office on behalf of the pressure group Freedom from Torture questions government claims that the east African state is “generally a safe country” for refugees.

The government’s claim that Rwanda is “generally” a “safe third country” is irrational.

It relies upon apparent pre-determination or bias.

The home secretary has breached her duty not to induce breaches of the European convention on human rights by her agents.

Removing asylum seekers to Rwanda is beyond Patel’s legal authority because it is contrary to the refugee convention.

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Number of displaced people passes 100m for the first time, says UN

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‘Staggering milestone’ calls for urgent international action to address underlying causes of conflict, persecution and the climate crisis, says high commissioner for refugees

The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) has said the global number of forcibly displaced people has passed 100 million for the first time, describing it as a “staggering milestone”.

The UN high commissioner for refugees, Filippo Grandi, said the grim new statistic should act as a wake-up call for the international community and that more action is needed internationally to address the root causes of forced displacement around the world.

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‘Huge spike’ in global conflict caused record number of displacements in 2021

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Those fleeing combat were internally displaced 14.4m times, with biggest toll in sub-Saharan Africa, report reveals

Conflict and violence forced people from their homes a record number of times last year, a report has found, with sub-Saharan Africa bearing the brunt of mass internal displacement caused by “huge spikes” in fighting.

People fleeing violence were internally displaced 14.4m times in 2021, an increase of 4.6m on 2020, according to figures published by the Norwegian Refugee Council’s Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC).

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‘I thought the UK was a good country’: Sudan massacre refugee faces removal to Rwanda

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Mohammed is among first asylum seekers to face removal under Home Office’s controversial scheme

It took Mohammed more than three years and a journey of more than 5,000 miles to reach the UK after fleeing a massacre in his village in Sudan.

Now, just over a week after arriving by kayak across the Channel, he is among the first tranche of asylum seekers facing forced removal to Rwanda, on the continent where his journey began.

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Homes for Ukraine: refugees being left homeless, UK community groups warn

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Fears system could crash entirely amid growing reports of people being made to leave by sponsors

Growing numbers of refugees are being made homeless, and in many cases destitute, after relationship breakdowns with their Homes for Ukraine hosts in the UK, community organisations have said.

Some predict the system could crash entirely after reports of Ukrainian refugees being asked to leave the homes of their sponsors with only one day’s notice, leaving them with no option but to be referred to local authorities as homeless or, if they can afford to, attempt to seek last-minute rented accommodation.

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‘We’ll make it work’: the Ukrainian families benefiting from UK community-led scheme

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Iryna, Vladysav and their three children are among those taking advantage of new, ‘streamlined’ service offered by Communities for Ukraine

They looked pale and exhausted as they waited for their cases – containing the few possessions they were able to pack into their car when they fled their home in Ukraine – at Luton irport’s baggage reclaim.

But the smiles of relief beamed out when the family – mum, dad and three children – stepped into arrivals hall to be greeted by a welcome banner, goody bags and the warm hugs of their host, retired teacher Cora Hall, who has opened up her Staffordshire home as part of a new refugee sponsorship programme.

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‘I’m too old for this’: the harrowing flight from Donetsk’s perilous border towns

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Urged to evacuate, vulnerable residents are being carried to safety in makeshift volunteer convoys

It was Nina’s 88th birthday, and she marked it by leaving behind everything she had known. Volunteers, not particularly young or fit themselves, carried her down three flights of stairs from her flat, past the irises about to bloom in her neighbour’s patch of garden.

Apartment buildings hid the ruins of the local school, destroyed last week by a Russian missile, but the war intruded on the yard anyway, the regular thump of distant artillery echoing through the sunny afternoon.

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Fifty people to be sent to Rwanda in a fortnight, says Boris Johnson

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PM says he will ‘dig in for the fight’ with ‘leftie lawyers’ challenging government’s plan for refugees

Boris Johnson said 50 people have been told they will be sent to Rwanda within the next fortnight, and that he was ready to fight with “leftie lawyers” seeking to challenge the government’s plans for refugees.

Under the £120m scheme announced last month, people deemed to have entered the UK unlawfully will be transported to the east African country, where they will be allowed to apply for the right to settle.

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Boat capsizes near Puerto Rico, killing 11 as a ‘mass rescue effort’ is under way

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The total number of those aboard remains unclear although 31 have been rescued; the incident is the latest in a string across the region

Eleven people were killed and dozens were rescued after a boat capsized near Puerto Rico on Thursday, authorities said.

It was not immediately clear how many people were onboard the boat when it turned over, said a US coast guard spokesman, Ricardo Castrodad. He said a “mass rescue effort” was still under way.

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Ukraine refugees who enter UK via Ireland may be sent to Rwanda, MPs told

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Minister also refuses to say whether Ukrainians who cross Channel in small boats could be sent to Africa

Undocumented people who travel from Ukraine to the UK via Ireland could be considered for removal to Rwanda, a senior Home Office official has told MPs.

During the same select committee hearing, a minister refused to say under repeated questioning whether Ukrainians who arrive in the UK across the Channel by boat could also be sent to the central African country.

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Priti Patel blames lawyers as she admits Rwanda plan will ‘take time’

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Home secretary attacks ‘specialist lawyers’ as Labour calls delayed plan little more than a press release

Priti Patel has admitted that it will take time to establish the government’s high-profile plan to send people who arrive in the UK without authorisation to Rwanda, amid growing suspicion that it will not solve the migration crisis in the Channel.

In a further attack on the legal profession, the home secretary blamed “specialist lawyers” as the main reason for the delays in setting up the scheme.

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