From the air, an EU flight crew guide the Libyan navy to a refugee boat in the Mediterranean
Continue reading...Category Archives: Refugees
Lesbos coronavirus case sparks fears for refugee camp
Wave of anti-migrant violence has left refugees without food and medical care – and more vulnerable to disease than ever before
News of a confirmed case of Covid-19 on Lesbos has sparked fears of the impact of an outbreak at the overcrowded Moria refugee camp, where refugees live in dire conditions with appalling hygiene and little medical care.
The troubling conditions in the camp have worsened this week, and tensions on the island have seen several NGOs forced to reduce or close services over safety fears.
Continue reading...EU and Turkey hold ‘frank’ talks over border opening for migrants
Brussels agrees to rehouse up to 1,500 children as conditions in Greek camps deteriorate
EU leaders in Brussels held “frank” talks with president Recep Tayyip Erdoğanon Monday over his decision to open Turkey’s border to migrants travelling to Europe, as deteriorating conditions in Greek camps led to the bloc agreeing to rehouse up to 1,500 child refugees.
The presidents of the European commission and council, Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michel, sought a way to save the current migration deal with Turkey during difficult discussions with Erdoğan in Brussels.
Continue reading...Refugees told ‘Europe is closed’ as tensions rise at Greece-Turkey border
Teargas fired by both sides amid political standoff over people displaced by war in Syria
The EU has told migrants in Turkey that Europe’s doors are closedas Greek and Turkish police fired teargas at their shared border amid growing tensions over the plight of Syria’s refugees.
In a blunt message, the EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said: “Don’t go to the border. The border is not open. If someone tells you that you can go because the border is open … that is not true.
Continue reading...With its heavy-handed response to the border crisis, Europe is making a bad situation worse | Daniel Trilling
Turkey’s decision not to stop migrants crossing its borders will force politicians to reveal what they plan to do with them
“April 4th, 1984. Last night to the flicks,” runs a diary entry by Winston Smith, the protagonist of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. “One very good one of a ship full of refugees being bombed somewhere in the Mediterranean. Audience much amused by shots of a great huge fat man trying to swim away […] audience shouting with laughter when he sank.” Orwell is so often reduced to cliche, but this quote has been stuck in my mind since footage was circulated online this week of a Greek coastguard boat apparently trying to capsize a migrant dinghy in the narrow strip of sea between Turkey and Greece’s Aegean islands.
Related: Turkey deploys 1,000 police at Greek border as tensions rise
Continue reading...Aerial footage shows queues near Greek-Turkish border – video
Hundreds of refugees and migrants were queuing and camping near the Turkish-Greek border on Thursday. This footage was shot from a Turkish government helicopter while the interior minister, Süleyman Soylu, was inspecting the region. Last week Turkey announced it would no longer abide by a 2016 deal with the EU to reduce illegal migration
Continue reading...The humanitarian crisis in Turkey shines a light on Europe’s failures | Elif Shafak
Turkey was once on course to join the EU. The desperate refugees trapped on its border reflect a broken relationship
To understand Europe, we need to look more carefully at its borders. Too often, the debates on the future of Europe focus on a few leading nations and overlook the periphery. Yet the fate of the continent is deeply and inevitably connected with what’s happening along its fringes. And there is no bordering country that has as complex and confusing a relationship with Europe as Turkey – it was, after all, the Ottoman empire that was first referred to as “the sick man of Europe”.
Related: Migration: EU praises Greece as 'shield' after Turkey opens border
Continue reading...Putin and Erdoğan in last-ditch talks to secure Syria ceasefire
Russian and Turkish leaders will try to hammer out yet another deal to stabilise Idlib
A summit between the leaders of Turkey and Russia on Thursday may be the last chance to work out a deal that avoids further calamity in north-west Syria.
Faced with increasing military losses in Idlib province and a potential wave of people fleeing the fighting, the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is eager for a ceasefire – and Vladimir Putin is ready to bargain.
Continue reading...Germany tweets to deter Syrian refugees, fearing ‘repeat of 2015’
Government says it will support Greece as thousands of people arrive at Turkish border
The German government – anxious about the political consequences of a “repeat of 2015” – is tolerating Greece’s decision to suspend asylum claims at its borders and has launched a social media campaign to deter Syrian refugees from embarking on a journey to central Europe.
About 12,500 people are estimated to be waiting on the Turkish side of the Greek border after the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said on Saturday that he would open his country’s borders for refugees fleeing the nine-year war in Syria to cross over into Europe.
Continue reading...‘Now we don’t have to be afraid’: Syrian family who made it to safety in Turkey
Turkish border with Syria remains closed to most but some have escaped horrors of Idlib
In a video shot by her father, three-year-old Salwa listens intently to the rumble of military hardware in the distance. “Is it a plane or a shell?” he asks as they sit together on the sofa. “Shell!” she shouts, giggling hysterically when it explodes.
Turning the sounds of airstrikes and shelling into a game is how Abdullah Mohammed, 32, protected his daughter from the trauma of Syria’s war. Last week the family made it to the safety of Antakya, just over the Turkish border. Dancing around her new home in a pink princess dress, for the first time in her life Salwa doesn’t have to listen to the sounds of the conflict.
Continue reading...Migration: EU praises Greece as ‘shield’ after Turkey opens border
Bloc leaders announce financial support as UN questions Athens’ suspension of asylum applications
European Union leaders have given a show of support for Athens, describing Greece as Europe’s “shield” in deterring migrants, despite questions from the UN about breaches of international refugee law.
Four EU leaders met the Greek prime minister, Kyriákos Mitsotákis, at the border town of Orestiada on Tuesday, near where Greek police have been using teargas to deter hundreds of migrants from attempting to cross from Turkey.
Continue reading...Four years after Turkey deal, EU no closer to new asylum system
Distracted leaders have been unable to agree on how to ease the burden on frontline states
It was said to be the moment when the European Union lost its political innocence. Nearly four years ago, in March 2016, EU leaders signed a deal with Turkey aimed at preventing asylum seekers from travelling to Europe.
The pact was “celebrated by people who are dancing on the grave of refugee protection”, said the Europe boss of Amnesty International. But the realpolitik worked: the number of people arriving on the Greek islands from Turkey dropped drastically from a peak of 7,000 a day to a few hundred, although numbers began creeping up again in 2019.
Continue reading...Clashes as thousands gather at Turkish border to enter Greece
EU border agency Frontex on high alert as Turkish president keeps crossings open
Migrants trying to reach Europe have clashed violently with Greek riot police as Turkey claimed more than 76,000 people were now heading for the EU as a result of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s decision to open the Turkish side of the border.
Officers fired teargas at the migrants, some of whom threw stones and wielded metal bars as they sought to force their way into Greece at the normally quiet crossing in the north-eastern town of Kastanies.
Continue reading...Erdoğan says border will stay open as Greece tries to repel influx
Turkish leader claims 18,000 people have crossed into EU but some are met with teargas
Thousands of migrants may be in no man’s land between Turkey and Greece after Ankara opened its western borders, sparking chaotic scenes as Greek troops attempted to prevent refugees from entering Europe en masse.
Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, claimed 18,000 migrants had crossed the border, without immediately providing supporting evidence, but many appear to have been repelled by Greek border patrols firing teargas and stun grenades.
Continue reading...Refugees arrive on Lesbos as Turkey opens border – video
Three boats of refugees have landed on Lesbos in the last 24 hours as the island prepares for an influx of people after Turkey announced it was opening its borders. Meanwhile, thousands of people gathered in the Turkish city of Edirne, which borders Bulgaria and Greece
Continue reading...Police and protesters clash on Greek islands over new migrant camps
Teargas used against demonstrators on Lesbos and Chios who want migrants moved to the mainland
Clashes have broken out on the Greek islands of Lesbos and Chios, where residents tried to prevent the arrival of riot police and excavating machines to be used to build new migrant detention camps.
Police fired teargas to disperse the crowds that gathered early on Tuesday to try to prevent officers from disembarking from government-chartered ferries.
Continue reading...Conversations from Calais: the posters sharing migrant voices with the world
A poster project aims to re-humanise those affected by the refugee crisis by sharing conversations between migrants and volunteers
All photographs courtesy of Conversations from Calais
Continue reading...The contraceptive helping refugee women plan their families
Instead of becoming ‘factories for babies’, women who’ve fled South Sudan to Uganda are trying new options for managing their reproductive health
Christine Lamwaka and her husband gathered their six children and fled. It was April 2017 and their town in South Sudan had just been attacked. They walked for two days from Eastern Equatoria before crossing the border into Uganda.
“It was hard to flee with the young children. We struggled to run. I thought we couldn’t make it alive,” says Lamwaka, who was 22 at the time of the attack.
Continue reading...Coronavirus fears grip Middle East as Iran denies cover-up
Shrine city of Qom believed to be virus hub, as concern grows for region’s refugee population
Fears are growing across the Middle East that coronavirus has infiltrated a main pilgrimage route, which could lead the deadly pathogen to vulnerable refugee populations, causing perhaps unprecedented public health crises across the region.
Concern is centred on the Iranian shrine city of Qom, which is thought to be a hub of the disease and the likely source of its spread elsewhere in the country and in neighbouring states, where infected travellers have been diagnosed in recent days.
Continue reading...‘A step away from hell’: the young male refugees selling sex to survive
Photographer Heba Khamis spent a year and a half documenting the lives of ‘black birds’: the male Afghan and Iranian sex workers in Berlin’s Tiergarten
- All photographs by Heba Khamis
The allure of romance is never far away in Berlin’s Tiergarten park, a vast 520-acre expanse home to manicured lawns, dense forest, a picturesque boating lake and the city zoo. As families lay out picnics and millennials fire up barbecues, those seeking something more illicit head to the park’s wooded north, where young male Afghan and Iranian refugees can be found selling sex to the hundreds of buyers who pass through Tiergarten each day.
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