Category Archives: Refugees

First migrants land in Italy under post-Salvini coalition deal with EU

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EU ministers pledge support as 82 disembark from NGO boat, ending Salvini’s entry ban

Eighty-two migrants have disembarked in Italy, marking a break from the era of hardline immigration measures pushed by the former interior minister, Matteo Salvini.

On Saturday night, the migrants were transferred from the Norwegian-flagged rescue boat Ocean Viking, operated by the French charities SOS Méditerranée and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), to a coastguard vessel before being taken ashore on the Sicilian island of Lampedusa.

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My young cousin fled the bombs … only to be held in a camp alongside Isis supporters

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A 15-year-old girl from my family was among thousands of traumatised innocents dumped at the notorious al-Hawl displacement facility in Syria

In April, a 15-year-old female relative of mine attempted to escape from al-Hawl camp, the displacement facility in eastern Syria that hosts families of Islamic State fighters. My cousin was one of thousands of civilians displaced from areas previously held by Isis and kept at the camp as they fled the group’s last strongholds.

My relative never joined the organisation, nor did any member of her family. But when she was caught, the guards noticed she was wearing a burqa, the face veil that Isis imposed on women living under its so-called caliphate. Since she was no longer living under Isis, the Kurdish interrogators accused her of being a “Daeshiyah” – a pejorative word to describe female Isis sympathisers. Rather than defending herself as a civilian with no association or sympathy to Isis, she opted for a defiant tone: “This is Islam, like it or not.”

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‘It’s impossible to do anything’: Indonesia’s refugees in limbo as money runs out

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Australia’s funding cuts force hundreds of homeless refugees to plead to be taken into immigration detention

Once a military command post, the two-storey lime green building in Kalideres, West Jakarta, is now essentially a refugee camp.

More than 400 refugees are temporarily housed here in small dome tents squashed into every room and spilling out into the concrete car park. There is no running water, electricity, bathroom facilities or any certainty of food. A few days ago someone delivered biscuits, but there has been nothing since.

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‘Life-saving’: hundreds of refugees to be evacuated from Libya to Rwanda

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First group expected to leave dire detention centres in days, as UN denies reports that plan is part of EU strategy to keep refugees from Europe

Hundreds of African refugees and asylum seekers trapped in Libyan detention centres will be evacuated to Rwanda under a “life-saving” agreement reached with Kigali and the African Union, the UN refugee agency said on Tuesday.

The first group of 500 people, including children and young people from Somalia, Eritrea and Sudan, are expected to arrive in Rwanda over the coming days, out of 4,700 now estimated to be in custody in Libya, where conflict is raging. The measure is part of an “emergency transit mechanism”, to evacuate people at risk of harm in detention centres inside the county.

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Democrats condemn reported Trump plan to bar most refugees from US

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  • Administration officials reportedly aim to slash admissions
  • Beto O’Rourke: ‘We need more refugees, not fewer’

Leading Democrats have condemned reported moves by the Trump administration to effectively bar refugees arriving from most parts of the world.

As reported by the New York Times, the administration plans to cut back on a decades-old programme that each year admits tens of thousands fleeing war, persecution and famine.

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Bangladesh imposes mobile phone blackout in Rohingya refugee camps

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Muslims who fled persecution in Myanmar face prospect of further isolation as government orders operators to shut down services

Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims living in refugee camps in Bangladesh face a communications blackout after the government ordered a ban on mobile phone services and sim cards.

The country’s telecommunications regulatory body cited security fears and illegal mobile use as it ordered operators to shut down services in the overcrowded camps in the south-eastern border district of Cox’s Bazar by next Sunday.

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Erdoğan: I’ll let Syrian refugees leave Turkey for west unless safe zone set up

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Turkish president threatens to ‘open the gates’ in face of footdragging from US and EU

The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is threatening to “open the gates” to allow Syrian refugees to leave Turkey for western countries unless a controversial “safe zone” inside Syria is established soon.

Erdoğan’s comments come amid growing tension with Washington over delays in establishing the safe zone – first proposed by Donald Trump – not least over the fate of a key US-allied Kurdish militia, the YPG, which Ankara regards as a terrorist organisation.

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UN communications chief under fire for tweeting refugee’s details

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Melissa Fleming’s data breach led to girl’s name, location and phone number being retweeted to 2.3 million UNHCR followers

The UN’s newly appointed under secretary-general for global communications has been accused of an “astonishing” breach of confidentiality, after she tweeted an image of a child refugee that displayed personal details, including her name, location and family’s phone number.

The tweet, sent by Melissa Fleming, was retweeted by UNHCR to its 2.3 million followers over the weekend before being deleted. Fleming has since told the Guardian she is trying to locate the child’s family to apologise.

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Home Office planning to end family reunion for children after Brexit

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Exclusive: Current system for asylum-seeking minors set to end the day after UK leaves EU

The Home Office is preparing to end the current system of family reunification for asylum-seeking children if the UK leaves the EU without a deal, the Guardian has learned.

The government has privately briefed the UN refugee agency UNHCR and other NGOs that open cases may be able to progress, but a no-deal Brexit would mean no new applications after 1 November from asylum-seeking children to be reunited with relatives living in the UK. Even if there is a deal, the future of family reunion is not certain.

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Channel smugglers cram 30 migrants into boats made for six

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Children tell charity workers of being knocked into the water as attempts to reach UK from France increase

Smugglers are cramming up to 30 people on to small boats to cross the Channel from France to the UK, and children have been among those who have recently fallen overboard, campaigners have revealed.

As crossing attempts surge at the close of summer amid rumours that Brexit will mean tighter border restrictions, criminal gangs are loading inflatable boats up to five times their capacity. Previously, people smugglers would put about eight passengers on each vessel.

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‘I lost my soul’: the teenage girls lured by traffickers from Nigerian camps | Philip Obaji Jr

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Traumatised refugee children are being enticed by tempting offers of escape from poverty, then sold into slavery – but survivors are fighting back

At the age of 15, Aisha and Halima were abducted from their compound in north-eastern Nigeria by Boko Haram insurgents. For a year they were held in captivity, and were raped. They managed to escape their captors, and find their way across the desert to a camp in Madinatu, in Borno state.

Though they had made it to relative safety, life in the camp was hard for the traumatised teenagers. They had had no contact with their family since their abductions, and there was little to eat. They had to fend off unwelcome advances by local community law enforcers, including members of the Civilian Joint Task Force, who, they say, offered food in exchange for sex.

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Westminster looks at giving France money to curb Channel crossings

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Priti Patel discusses increasing financial support amid hike in attempted crossings

The UK government is considering increasing the amount it pays France to help deal with people trying to make the perilous Channel crossing to England using small boats, Paris has said.

The proposal was discussed during talks on Thursday between the British home secretary, Priti Patel, and her French counterpart, Christophe Castaner, that were prompted by an increase in the number of such attempted crossings over the summer.

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Italy grounds two planes used to search for migrant boats

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NGOs Pilotes Volontaires and Sea-Watch blocked from using aircraft for Mediterranean rescues

Italy has grounded two planes used by NGOs to search for migrant boats in distress in the Mediterranean.

The planes – Moonbird and Colibri – are operated by the German NGO Sea-Watch and the French NGO Pilotes Volontaires respectively and have been flying reconnaissance missions over the Mediterranean since 2017.

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Asylum seekers held in Papua New Guinea blocked from talking to lawyers or doctors

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Inquiry hears that asylum seekers detained in PNG do not have access to phones, preventing medical evacuation

Asylum seekers held in a Papua New Guinean detention facility are being prevented from talking to lawyers and doctors, blocking them from medical evacuation to Australia approved under new medevac laws.

David Manne, the executive director of Refugee Legal, told a Senate inquiry on Monday that he had lost contact with one client who had been approved for urgent evacuation weeks ago but was then detained at the Bomana detention facility in Papua New Guinea.

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Athens police poised to evict refugees from squatted housing projects

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A self-governing community in central Athens which has helped house refugees is threatened by a government crackdown

It’s just after 5am in the central Athens neighbourhood of Exarcheia. A group of Afghans and Iranians are sitting down together for breakfast in the middle of the street, with a banner that reads “No Pasaran” (“They shall not pass”) strung between the buildings above their heads. They laugh and joke as they help themselves to bread and cheese pies from the communal table.

The public breakfast is outside Notara 26, a self-organised refugee accommodation squat. Since opening in September 2015, at the height of the refugee crisis, it has provided shelter to over 9,000 people. These ‘‘Breakfasts of Resistance” – held in the early hours when police-led evictions are most likely – have become daily events since Greece’s New Democracy government assumed office in July.

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UN migration agency accused of pressuring Bangladeshis to return home

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Complaint against International Organization of Migration of ‘severe concerns’ over treatment of rescued migrants in Tunisia

The UN migration agency is the subject of a formal complaint after “severe concerns” were raised about its treatment of Bangladeshi migrants, including children.

A Tunis-based NGO, Forum Tunisien pour les Droits Economiques et Sociaux (FTDES), filed a complaint to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) this month, after migrants alleged officials and diplomats had put pressure on them to return home following weeks at sea.

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Nearly 900,000 asylum seekers living in limbo in EU, figures show

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Backlog of claims persists despite number of arrivals almost halving in two years

Close to 900,000 asylum seekers in the EU are waiting to have their claims processed, according to figures from the European statistics office.

Women, men and unaccompanied children are living for years in uncertainty, with numbers of pending applications for international protection almost unchanged from two years ago when 1.1 million migrants were “stuck” in the continent.

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‘It’s not legal’: UN stands by as Turkey deports vulnerable Syrians

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Government pressure leaves agency silent despite claims of forced returns of LGBT refugees and others under police crackdown

When summer began, Ward’s* biggest worry was her sick boyfriend.

A Syrian with a gentle voice, and all her identity documents in order, Ward thought she could convince doctors in Istanbul, where she lived, to see her boyfriend, another refugee, without papers.

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Greek NGO helping child refugees wins $2m humanitarian prize

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Metadrasi provides translators, transport and helps find homes for unaccompanied minors

An NGO helping migrant and refugee children in Greece has won the world’s biggest annual humanitarian award.

Metadrasi received the $2m (£1.6m) Hilton humanitarian prize for its “innovative approach to welcoming refugees and protecting unaccompanied minors”, the Conrad N Hilton Foundation said.

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