~theguardian-world | Bookmarks (32)

French coastguard says small boat was carrying more than 100 people during failed crossing attemptFive people have died in an attempt to cross the Channel near the town of Wimereux, south of Calais, French police have said.A spokesperson for France’s national police told Reuters that five asylum seekers had died, while the French coastguard confirmed there was a failed attempt to cross the Channel...

Exclusive: review finds government yet to substantiate claims UN relief agency staff have ties to Hamas or Islamic JihadIsrael still has no proof of Unrwa terrorist claims – but damage to aid agency is doneIsrael has yet to provide supporting evidence of its claims that employees of the UN relief agency Unrwa are members of terrorist organisations, an independent review led by the former...

Katherine Anne Rose spent months documenting the Scottish charity, which welcomes and supports forcibly displaced people with the help of the local communityRefuweegee is a play on the words “refugee” and “weegie”, affectionate slang for a Glaswegian. The charity was founded in December 2015 by Selina Hales, a Glasgow native who wanted to welcome displaced people in the city after seeing news coverage of...

Families of those who helped British forces could be deported from Pakistan despite promise to resettle them in UKAfghan families who helped UK forces and then fled to neighbouring Pakistan are in danger of being deported back to the Taliban due to Home Office delays in bringing them to the UK.In the chaotic evacuation period in the Afghan capital, Kabul, in August 2021 some...

Trhas Tesfay, who fled war in Ethiopia, says she suffers hunger headaches as she cannot eat Home Office hotel mealsOne of Ethiopia’s elite female cyclists will be pedalling at the front of one of London’s biggest bike races next month while living in an asylum seeker hotel on less than £10 a week.Trhas Teklehaimanot Tesfay, 22, rode a bicycle for the first time when...

Fears of a new migration route grow as more than 800 people land on Gavdos, population fewer than 70, in a few monthsEven by the standards of small Greek islands, Gavdos is tiny. In a population of fewer than 70 people, there are just two families with four children. The rest “are all old people mostly living alone”, its mayor, Lilian Stefanaki, explains.It is...

Soaked survivors clung to hull overnight before being taken to safety by Indonesian rescue teamDozens of Rohingya refugees have been rescued from the Indian Ocean off the coast of Indonesia after spending the night balanced on the hull of their overturned boat.Seventy-five people were pulled from the stricken vessel, which was spotted on Thursday by an Indonesian search and rescue ship. Continue reading...

Families say they were promised details of relatives’ whereabouts after contacting people they thought were linked to NGO in SpainFamilies of people who disappeared on the perilous journey from Africa to Europe have said they were asked to pay hundreds of euros in exchange for information about what had happened to their loved ones.In interviews with the Guardian, three families recounted how, as part...

Médecins Sans Frontières says ‘dangerous manoeuvres’ by coastguard put refugees at even greater riskAn NGO performing search and rescue missions in the Mediterranean has accused the Libyan coastguard of hampering an attempt to save more than 170 people making the perilous journey across the sea to Europe.In a statement, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said its ship had come to the rescue of two boats...

Six of bloc’s leaders sign agreement in Cairo aimed at boosting economy and bringing stability to regionEU leaders have sealed a €7.4bn (£6.3bn) deal with Egypt to help boost the country’s faltering economy, in an attempt to bring stability to the “troubled” region and avert another migration crisis in Europe.The three-year EU-Egypt strategic partnership involves €5bn in soft loans to support economic changes, €1.8bn...

Exclusive: Charities say Home Office should allow 56 days after near 1,000% rise in rough sleeping among accommodation leaversLeading homelessness and refugee charities have called on the government to double the number of days that newly recognised refugees are given to find a home before being evicted from asylum hotels, after a near 1,000% rise in rough sleeping among Home Office accommodation leavers since...

Twenty organisations including Refugee Council say children being failed and abused by Home OfficeFoster families and social workers are demanding an independent inquiry after it emerged that Home Office-employed staff forced refugee children to play a game to guess who would be the next one to be placed in foster care.In a letter published today in the Guardian, the British Association of Social Workers,...

Ombudsman says papers show EU agency made four offers to help Greece with surveillance of boat that sank, but got no responseOpinion: Emily O’ReillyThe rules governing the EU’s border and coastguard agency Frontex must be urgently revised if Europe is to avoid a repeat of last year’s tragedy off the coast of Greece in which about 600 people are thought to have died, an...

Benefits for Latin American host nations could be greater still if access to jobs for migrants were increased, research showsAn exodus of nearly 8 million Venezuelan migrants who have fled poverty and political turmoil is boosting the economies of other countries across South America, two studies published by leading international financial institutions have found.The foreign workforce will lift the economies of their main host...

Federal court hears appeal after finding Mostafa ‘Moz’ Azimitabar’s Melbourne detention ‘lacked ordinary human decency’ but did not breach lawGet our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcastThe commonwealth’s detainment of a Kurdish refugee in hotels that “deprived” him of his liberty was unlawful, a lawyer for the former detainee has argued in an appeal against a federal court decision.Kurdish...

Continuation of war has left more refugees unsettled, with councils stepping in to to relieve most cases of homelessnessCouncils have called for urgent review of funding for Ukrainian refugees amid alarm that 9,000 have reported as homeless and many more are needing longer-term support – with no sign of the war ending after two years.The government announced on Sunday that it would extend by...

Refugees will have ‘certainty and assurance’ says Home Office, but charities say move insufficient as many face homelessnessUkrainians who sought sanctuary in the UK after the Russian invasion will be permitted to extend their visas for an extra 18 months, the Home Office has announced.More than 200,000 Ukrainians visa holders have arrived in the UK since March 2022, with the first visas to expire...

The suspension of a Congolese player for a gun gesture referring to conflict in DRC raises questions over government’s refugee policyWhen a Congolese footballer made a brief gesture after scoring in an east African league match last weekend, it felt like little more than a talking point among the spectators.Yet the gesture by midfielder Héritier Luvumbu at the game in Kigali has prompted a...

Monitoring group releases evidence of work that appears intended to house Palestinians in event of Israeli assault on cityMiddle East crisis – live updatesEgypt has begun building an enclosed area ringed with high concrete walls along its border with Gaza that appears intended to house Palestinians fleeing a threatened Israeli assault on the southern city of Rafah.Photos and videos released by the Sinai Foundation...

Lawyers see Basir’s case as test of European policies that fail to provide safe routes to sub-Saharan asylum seekers For 25-year-old Basir, it was a ray of hope after fleeing Sudan more than a decade ago. For his lawyers, the asylum request he made from Morocco was the ultimate test of whether Spain – and more broadly the EU – was willing to provide...

Damning report by MPs warns policy places UK’s reputation for rule of law and human rights ‘in jeopardy’The UK government’s controversial Rwanda legislation that deems the African country as a safe place to deport people to is fundamentally incompatible with Britain’s human rights obligations and places it in breach of international law, according to a damning parliamentary report.MPs and peers from the cross-party joint...

Gun Ufuk, 29, sentenced to 20 years in prison over deadly sinking that occurred metres from shoreAn Italian court has sentenced a people smuggler to 20 years in prison for involvement in a shipwreck last year that killed at least 94 migrants.The court in the southern city of Crotone found Gun Ufuk, a 29-year-old Turkish national, guilty of crimes including causing a shipwreck and...

Atlantic route to chain of islands is deadliest migration passage to Spain with 6,007 people dying last yearThe number of people from west Africa who braved the sea in boats to reach Spain’s Canary Islands jumped more than 1,000% in January from a year before, according to data released by the country’s interior ministry.A total of 7,270 people reached the archipelago in the Atlantic...

Country accused of violating torture convention in hope of finding justice decade after incident in which at least 15 people diedA 25-year-old from Cameroon has filed a complaint to the UN against Spain, accusing the country of multiple violations of the convention against torture in hope of seeking justice after an incident in 2014 during which at least 15 people died while trying to...