More than 60,000 Nigerians live in Minawao refugee camp in Cameroon after fleeing from Boko Haram. Many have PTSD and other mental health conditions because of what they endured. Here are some of their stories
Continue reading...Category Archives: Refugees
Refugee victims of Tajoura bombing still lie in unmarked graves one year on
Coronavirus thwarts plan by survivors to light candles for dozens of detainees who died in airstrike on detention centre during Tripoli fighting
One year on from the migrant detention centre bombing in Tajoura, eastern Tripoli, dozens of refugees and migrants who died have never been formally identified.
At least 53 people were killed and 130 injured on the night of 2 July 2019, according to the UN, after an airstrike by a foreign aircraft supporting eastern warlord Khalifa Haftar’s forces hit a hall where migrants and refugees were locked up.
Continue reading...After the Glasgow hotel attack, a week of shock, anger and compassion
Grassroots groups have rallied to help traumatised former residents of the Park Inn
When Gabriel Vest ran into Asda on Sunday evening with £300 to spend on underwear and socks, staff at Glasgow’s southside branch were initially bemused. He explained he was buying emergency supplies for around 90 asylum seekers evacuated from the Park Inn hotel last Friday after Badreddin Abedlla Adam, from Sudan, stabbed six people before being shot dead by police. “Then they just wanted to help. I didn’t even have to queue.”
Vest, who ordinarily works with Bikes for Refugees, was bulk-buying for Maslow’s, a nearby community shop that supplies second-hand clothing for newly arrived migrants, and that day was hurriedly putting together packages for residents who had had to leave their belongings behind the police cordon. “I got a message from another volunteer who was at the hotel, to say there was one man who was still in his underwear because that was how he’d left his room when the fire alarm had gone off. He was left like that for two days. It was grim.”
Continue reading...‘I saw so much killing’: the mental health crisis of South Sudan refugees
Therapy is helping some of the thousands forced over the border to Uganda to cope, but funding shortfalls mean resources are becoming scarcer
As darkness fell, Rebecca closed the door to her makeshift home. The day was over.
The 29-year-old, who had been uprooted from South Sudan to a north Ugandan refugee settlement, sat on the bed where her four children slept and, at around 10pm, tried to take her own life. “By then I didn’t care about anything – not myself, not even my kids. The pain was too extreme,” she says. Her children awoke and their cries brought help from neighbours.
Continue reading...Cox’s Bazar refugee camps: where social distancing is impossible
Faced with unsanitary conditions and overcrowding, families say they fear the coronavirus will bring disaster
Continue reading...‘We want to stay’: refugees struggle to integrate in Greece after camp life
Asylum seekers discharged from island holding centres are given little support to find accommodation and work
It never occurred to Sarah Husseini that one day she might think of Moria camp with something approaching affection. The 22-year-old Afghan spent two years in the infamous holding facility on Lesbos and, throughout, her young daughters were “sick, sick, sick”.
But then she, her husband Ali and their two toddlers were instructed to board a ferry to Piraeus and their world changed. “The UN told us ‘the government wants you to leave, you have papers now, you can’t stay here any more’,” she says, explaining why she has ended up semi-destitute in central Athens.
Continue reading...‘The pandemic is accelerating’: WHO warns of dangerous coronavirus phase – video
The World Health Organization has announced the coronavirus pandemic is accelerating and more than 150,000 cases of Covid-19 were reported in one day on Thursday, the highest single-day number so far.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO director general, told reporters in Geneva refugees were particularly at risk from the pandemic and that nearly half of the newly reported cases were in the Americas, with significant numbers from South Asia and the Middle East
- Coronavirus live news: pandemic is accelerating, says WHO chief
- Nearly 1,500 deaths in one day: UK ministers accused of downplaying Covid-19 peak
- From celebration to dismay: the week coronavirus re-emerged in New Zealand
Croatian police officers arrested over beating of Afghan asylum seeker
Arrest follows series of complaints of abuse and torture by Croatian law enforcement against those crossing from Bosnia
Two Croatian police officers were arrested on Thursday over the beating of an asylum seeker, as the UN urged the country to immediately investigate reports of excessive use of force against migrants.
The police in Karlovac, 35 miles south-west of Zagreb, announced the two officers had been charged after an Afghan man who crossed the border from Bosnia was injured, 24sata, a leading daily newspaper in Croatia, reported.
Continue reading...‘Boats arrive, people disappear’: one Greek’s search for missing refugees
When asylum seekers seen landing on Chios vanished, a local journalist’s investigation put him at odds with authorities
When Ioannis Stevis moved back to his native island of Chios after a long career in journalism he could not have imagined that his retirement project would eventually put him at odds with his own government.
But the local online news service he created, Astraparis, ended up bearing witness to one of the most significant stories in recent European history: the ongoing refugee crisis.
Continue reading...Forcibly displaced now account for 1% of humanity – UN report
Almost 80 million people are refugees or internally displaced, with the number doubling in the past decade
The number of people forcibly displaced from their homes has doubled over the past decade to almost 80 million, according to the UN refugee agency.
A 9 million rise in the number of those forced to flee in 2019, fuelled by conflict in Syria, Yemen, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Burkina Faso, means that one in every 97 people around the world – about 1% of all humanity – is now displaced, according to numbers in UNHCR’s annual report, published on Thursday.
Continue reading...‘I just need a connection’: the refugees teaching languages across borders
A unique platform lets teachers from Venezuela to Syria to Burundi earn a living teaching their language online
Louisa Waugh and Ghaith Alhallak have met for language lessons in seven countries. “We counted it up the other day,” says Waugh, recalling the list of places from which she has video-called Alhallak: Britain, Mali, Senegal and Greece. Alhallak has answered from Lebanon, France and Italy, where he is now studying for a master’s degree in political science at the University of Padua.
“You just need a connection,” he says.
Continue reading...EU ‘covered up’ Croatia’s failure to protect migrants from border brutality
Exclusive: Brussels officials feared disclosing Zagreb’s lack of commitment to monitoring would cause ‘scandal’
EU officials have been accused of an “outrageous cover-up” after withholding evidence of a failure by Croatia’s government to supervise police repeatedly accused of robbing, abusing and humiliating migrants at its borders.
Internal European commission emails seen by the Guardian reveal officials in Brussels had been fearful of a backlash when deciding against full disclosure of Croatia’s lack of commitment to a monitoring mechanism that ministers had previously agreed to fund with EU money.
Continue reading...NSW court blocks refugee rally after police accuse protesters of ‘Russian roulette’
The rally, which was scheduled for Saturday afternoon, has been declared a prohibited public gathering
Refugee activists have vowed to push ahead with a planned protest this weekend despite the supreme court prohibiting the event amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
Justice Michael Walton on Thursday night granted a NSW police application for the rally to be declared a prohibited public gathering.
Continue reading...Afghan car blaze deaths prompt fury over mistreatment of refugees in Iran
Protest comes amid investigation into death by drowning of dozens of Afghans who crossed Iranian border illegally
The deaths of three Afghan refugees in a car blaze in Iran have prompted an outpouring of anger in Afghanistan, after reports that the vehicle caught fire after it was shot at by Iranian police.
Tens of thousands of Afghans have protested on social media against the mistreatment of the refugees. Dozens more have protested on the streets in Kabul and in eastern Nangarhar province, with more demonstrations planned for major cities like London, Washington DC and Toronto in mid-June.
Continue reading...Italy considers charges over Malta’s ‘shocking’ refusal to rescue migrants
Foreign ministry condemns Valletta for not abiding by international rules and ordering stricken boat to Sicily at gunpoint
The Italian government has confirmed that Malta’s armed forces turned a migrant boat away at gunpoint from Maltese waters, after giving them fuel and the GPS coordinates to reach Italy.
Police in Sicily are investigating and the prosecutor’s office may open an investigation against Malta in the next few days. Maltese officers risk being charged with aiding illegal immigration.
Continue reading...Crosses on our heads to ‘cure’ Covid-19: refugees report abuse by Croatian police
Group of asylum seekers including minors say they were beaten and spray-painted near the border with Bosnia, as calls grow for EU to investigate
Details have emerged of more than 30 migrants allegedly robbed, beaten and spray-painted with red crosses on their heads by Croatian police officers who said the treatment was the “cure against coronavirus”.
The Guardian has interviewed asylum seekers, obtained photographs and collected dozens of testimonies, including from minors, revealing how the Croatian authorities were laughing and drinking beer while spray-painting migrants attempting to cross the border from Bosnia-Herzegovina, as EU parliamentarians have now begun pushing for an independent commission of inquiry to investigate the abuses.
Continue reading...Greece ready to welcome tourists as refugees stay locked down in Lesbos
In Moria, Europe’s largest migrant camp, tensions are rising as life is more restricted and the threat of Covid-19 is ever present
Children fly kites between tents in the shadow of barbed wire fences as life continues in Europe’s largest refugee camp. There are 17,421 people living here in a space designed for just under 3,000. Residents carrying liquid soap and water barrels encourage everyone to wash their hands as they pass by, refugees and aid workers alike. While Moria remains untouched by the pandemic, the spectre of coronavirus still looms heavy.
Greece is poised to open up to tourism in the coming months and bars and restaurants are reopening this week. Movement restrictions were lifted for the general population on 4 May but have been extended for refugees living in all the island camps and a number of mainland camps until 7 June.
Continue reading...Exclusive: 12 die as Malta uses private ships to push migrants back to Libya
Survivor reveals further evidence to Guardian and La Repubblica of Malta’s deadly strategy to intercept migrants crossings
Further evidence of Malta’s strategy to push migrants back to the conflict zone of Libya has been revealed by a woman who survived a Mediterranean crossing in which 12 people died.
A series of voice messages obtained by the Guardian have provided confirmation of the Maltese government’s strategy to use private vessels, acting at the behest of its armed forces, in order to intercept migrant crossings and return refugees to Libyan detention centres.
Continue reading...Coronavirus cases among refugees on Lesbos spark fresh calls for evacuation
NGOs say infections among arriving refugees show urgent need to move more migrants from Moria camp to mainland
Two migrants arriving by sea to the Greek island of Lesbos tested positive for coronavirus on Tuesday, leading to increased calls for evacuation of the overcrowded local camps.
The Moria camp in Lesbos has so far not reported cases of the virus, though two other camps and a hotel where asylum-seekers are staying were locked down in April after positive coronavirus tests were returned.
Continue reading...French court scraps olive farmer’s conviction for helping migrants cross border
Amnesty International says appeals ruling will affect ‘acts of solidarity’ throughout Europe
A French court has scrapped all charges against an olive farmer who helped migrants enter the country illegally, the final chapter in a groundbreaking case that defined so-called “crimes of solidarity”.
Cedric Herrou, who helped about 200 migrants cross the border from Italy into southern France, was given a four-month suspended sentence in August 2017.
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