Chios case highlights deplorable conditions on islands despite EU allocating millions of euros to improve facilities, aid workers say
At a desolate refugee camp on the Greek island of Chios earlier this week, a young man died alone in a tent. By the time the guards arrived on the scene, about 12 hours after the Somali refugee’s death, the body was surrounded by rodents.
Asylum seekers who had initially alerted staff spoke in horror at seeing rats and mice swarming about.
Continue reading...I had never imagined how horribly the company my father works for was entangled with the story of my West Papuan partner
They make great trucks. That’s what my father says whenever I ask him: “What do they make? Who do they sell them to?” “Only to the good guys,” is his standard answer, and the topic changes quickly. But what he calls “trucks”, most people call “tanks”. And I am always led to wonder, “What kind of ‘good guy’ drives a tank?”
My father works for Thales, one of the richest weapons corporations in the world. Before heading up security for Thales he worked for Asio, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation.
Continue reading...A Guardian analysis finds EU countries used brutal tactics to stop nearly 40,000 asylum seekers crossing borders
EU member states have used illegal operations to push back at least 40,000 asylum seekers from Europe’s borders during the pandemic, methods being linked to the death of more than 2,000 people, the Guardian can reveal.
In one of the biggest mass expulsions in decades, European countries, supported by EU’s border agency Frontex, has systematically pushed back refugees, including children fleeing from wars, in their thousands, using illegal tactics ranging from assault to brutality during detention or transportation.
Continue reading...President said last month he would leave Trump-era figure of 15,000 in place this year
Joe Biden has formally raised the US cap on refugee admissions to 62,500 this year, weeks after facing bipartisan blowback for his delay in replacing the record-low ceiling set by Donald Trump.
Refugee resettlement agencies have waited for Biden to quadruple the number of refugees allowed into the United States this year since 12 February, when a presidential proposal was submitted to Congress saying he planned to do so.
Continue reading...Unicef warns many child refugees and migrants picked up off the coast of Libya will be sent to ‘appalling’ detention centres
Fears are rising over the numbers of lone children risking their lives to reach Europe after 114 were pulled from the Mediterranean Sea in one day this week.
The unaccompanied minors were among 125 children rescued off the Libyan coast on Tuesday by the authorities, aid agencies said.
Continue reading...We are raiding the Audio Long Reads archives and bringing you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors.
This week, from 2016: For Syrians in exile, food is more than a means of sustenance. It is a reminder of the rich and diverse culture being destroyed by civil war. By Wendell Steavenson
Continue reading...Exclusive: Torture survivors and lone children stuck in Greece and Italy after Home Office ‘deliberately’ ends cooperation on family reunions
The Home Office has been accused of failing to reunite vulnerable refugees who have the right to join family in the UK under EU law, leaving lone children and torture survivors stranded.
The government faced widespread criticism when it announced that family reunion law would no longer apply after the UK left the EU, and it promised that cases under way on that date would be allowed to proceed.
Continue reading...Last week, a dinghy full of migrants sank near Libya. Those who were part of the rescue mission tell of a needless tragedy
The weather was already turning when the distress call went out. A rubber dinghy with 130 people on board was adrift in the choppy Mediterranean waters.
On the bridge of the Ocean Viking, one of the only remaining NGO rescue boats operational in the Mediterranean, 121 nautical miles west, stood Luisa Albera, staring anxiously at her computer screen and then out at the rising storm and falling light at sea.
Continue reading...A roundup of the coverage on struggles for human rights and freedoms, from Cambodia to Peru
Ahtisham Khan arrived in Greece, aged 16, after leaving Pakistan. A new initiative is helping children like him find a safe home where they can start to rebuild their lives
At some point in his journey to a freer place, Ahtisham Khan came to a fork in the road. Fifty days of travel from his native Pakistan to the plains of northern Greece had been unexpectedly frightening and exhausting.
“We had a lot of dreams,” he says, recalling why he and his brother, Zeeshan, left their village close to the city of Haripur in Pakistan. “We were teenagers … we didn’t know what we were embarking on. We did what we had to do to survive.”
Continue reading...Italy’s former interior minister says he was doing his job by refusing to allow ship with 147 people on board to dock
A judge in Sicily has ordered the former Italian interior minister Matteo Salvini to stand trial for refusing to let a Spanish migrant rescue ship dock in an Italian port in 2019, keeping the people at sea for days.
Judge Lorenzo Iannelli set 15 September as the trial date during a court hearing in Palermo, LaPresse news agency reported.
Continue reading...Men brought to Australia for medical care removed as Kangaroo Point hotel owners reclaim possession
Nineteen asylum seekers brought to Australia from Nauru and Manus Island for medical care have been forcibly removed from the the Kangaroo Point Central Hotel and Apartments in Brisbane, which was used for their long-term detention, supporters say.
It is understood they have been taken to the Brisbane Immigration Transit Accommodation Centre on the outskirts of the city, but it is unclear if the men will be held there long term or be moved to another centre or another state.
Continue reading...President condemned by progressives and advocacy groups despite ending ban on arrivals from Somalia, Syria and Yemen
Facing swift blowback from fellow lawmakers and aid groups, the White House on Friday said that Joe Biden plans to lift his predecessor’s historically low cap on refugees by next month, after initially moving only to expand the eligibility criteria for resettlements.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Transcripts of conversations between Italian officials and Libyan coastguard contained in leaked file
At 8.18am on Friday 16 June 2017, the Libyan coastguard Col Massoud Abdalsamad received a long-distance phone call from an Italian coastguard official who told him that 10 migrant dinghies were in distress, many in Libyan territorial waters.
“It’s a day off. It’s a holiday here. But I can try to help,” Abdalsamad told the official. “Perhaps we can be there tomorrow.”
Continue reading...Proposals follow Kenyan government’s ultimatum to UN refugee agency to close Dadaab and Kakuma camps
The UN refugee agency has given the Kenyan government “sustainable and rights-based” proposals for the closure of Dadaab and Kakuma refugee camps.
The response follows a 14-day ultimatum issued by the Kenyan government for the UN high commissioner for refugees (UNHCR) to come up with a plan for closing the two camps, which are home to some 430,000 refugees and asylum seekers from more than 15 countries.
Continue reading...Government denies renewal of temporary residency status from about 189 Syrians
Denmark has become the first European nation to revoke the residency permits of Syrian refugees, insisting that some parts of the war-torn country are safe to return to.
At least 189 Syrians have had applications for renewal of temporary residency status denied since last summer, a move the Danish authorities said was justified because of a report that found the security situation in some parts of Syria had “improved significantly”.
Continue reading...Abd al-Rahman Milad, AKA Bija, is accused by UN of being directly involved in sinking migrant boats
Libyan authorities have released a man described as one of the world’s most wanted human traffickers, who was placed under sanctions by the UN security council for being directly involved in the sinking of migrant boats.
The coastguard commander Abd al-Rahman Milad, known by his alias Bija, is suspected of being part of a criminal network operating in Zawiyah in north-west Libya. He was arrested last October but was freed on Sunday after the military attorney general of Tripoli dropped charges against him “for lack of evidence”.
Continue reading...Two centres in Lebanon are among the casualties of cuts to British aid, with devastating consequences for thousands of patients and families
In January, the British government told its diplomats to start finding 50–70% cuts in aid funding. In March, it was revealed it was slashing aid funding to Syrian refugee projects by a third. Among the many casualties of those cuts is a project in Lebanon.
Two centres – in Zahlé and in Beirut – offer specialised services, such as speech and physiotherapy, for disabled Syrian refugees who can’t afford to pay for them.
Continue reading...Coroner rules seriousness of Mulubrhane Medhane Kfleyosus’s illness went unrecognised
A teenage refugee killed himself after the serious nature of his mental illness was not recognised, a coroner has concluded.
Mulubrhane Medhane Kfleyosus, 19, was the fourth from his friendship group of Eritrean refugees to take his own life within a 16-month period after arriving in the UK.
Continue reading...Asylum seeker says she was threatened at knifepoint in latest in string of reports of violent pushbacks on Bosnia–Croatia border
A woman from Afghanistan was allegedly sexually abused, held at knifepoint and forced to strip naked by a Croatian border police officer, during a search of a group of migrants on the border with Bosnia.
The European commission described it as a “serious alleged criminal action’’ and urged the Croatian authorities “to thoroughly investigate all allegations, and follow up with relevant actions”.
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