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      ‘Pushed to the limit’: the tiny Greek island in people smugglers’ sights

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 2 days ago - 06:00

    Fears of a new migration route grow as more than 800 people land on Gavdos, population fewer than 70, in a few months

    Even 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 a micro-world that in the depths of winter is served by a single school, a bakery, two mini-markets and four kafeneia cum tavernas. The remote island in the Libyan Sea and separated from the coast of Crete by frequently unpredictable waters is watched over by Efsevios Daskalakis, who for much of the year is its sole police officer.

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      ‘I wanted to humanise those lost in the statistics’: four directors on their new movies depicting refugee journeys

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 5 days ago - 09:00 · 1 minute

    How does it feel to risk trafficking and torture to seek a better life in a strange land? Ahead of four films telling migrant stories, we hear from directors including Matteo Garrone and Milad Alami about tackling one of the most pressing issues of our time

    The telling of stories is an act of profound hospitality. Story is an ancient form of generosity, one that will always tell us everything we need to know about the contemporary world. It is fundamental to the communicative survival of the human species and has always been a welcoming-in; always, one way or another, a gracious meeting of the needs of self and other. The narratives we exchange don’t just validate all of us, they represent us much more truly than data or statistics or a passport ever will. Our individual selves transform in the telling into something shared and communal. This is because story is the opposite of an exclusion zone; by its nature, it’s always an inclusion zone, because a story that sets out to exclude won’t work as a story at all, its agenda being something else altogether.

    A glance at recent UK news is as telling about the inhumanity of our country’s treatment of refugees as ever. If I’m an asylum seeker here living in the care of the Home Office, and I die, then no one in the Home Office will care to notify my family . If I’m a rough sleeper on the streets of England, then the chances are more likely than not I’m a refugee who’s been evicted from Home Office temporary accommodation . (That’s just last week’s news.)

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      Revealed: UK-funded French forces putting migrants’ lives at risk with small-boat tactics

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 6 days ago - 17:00

    Exclusive: newly obtained footage and leaked documents show how a ‘mass casualty event’ could arise from aggressive tactics employed by border forces

    French police funded by the UK government have endangered the lives of vulnerable migrants by intercepting small boats in the Channel after they have set out for the UK, using tactics that search and rescue experts say could cause a “mass casualty event”.

    Shocking new evidence obtained by the Observer , Lighthouse Reports, Le Monde and Der Spiegel reveals for the first time that the French maritime police have tried physically to force small boats to turn around – manoeuvres known as “pullbacks” – in an attempt to prevent them reaching British shores.

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      Mass grave of at least 65 people found in Libya, UN migration agency says

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 7 days ago - 16:24


    International Organization for Migration says it is believed those discovered ‘died in process of being smuggled through the desert’

    A mass grave containing at least 65 bodies has been discovered in south-west Libya this week, the UN migration agency said on Friday.

    A spokesperson for the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said the mass grave was uncovered by Libyan security forces.

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      Kent council’s housing for lone child asylum seekers ‘may run out’ in March

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 7 days ago - 06:00

    High court told 3,541 unaccompanied children could arrive on small boats but Kent county council can accommodate only 1,631

    Accommodation for lone asylum seeker children who arrive on the Kent coast in small boats could run out before the end of this month, a council has warned, placing them at risk.

    Kent county council has legal duties under the Children Act to take these children into care on arrival in the UK. Due to its geographical location, it is under disproportionate pressure to look after these children compared with other local authorities. Under the national transfer scheme, many of the children are subsequently moved to different local authorities around the country after arrival.

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      Mexico: report challenges official story of migrant facility fire in which 40 died

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Wednesday, 20 March - 15:24

    Investigation asserts that detention centre staff had key to cell in which men were being held but did not open door to let them out

    A new report has challenged the official version of events during a fire in a Mexican migrant detention facility that killed dozens, alleging that staff could have let the men out of their cell, but instead decided – or were told – not to.

    The fire in Ciudad Juárez broke out on 27 March 2023, when detainees started a fire to protest conditions at the facility. But as the flames spread, the men were left in a locked cell as smoke filled the building, until firemen arrived. Forty men were killed, and another 27 survived, with life-altering injuries.

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      Missing migrants’ families say they were asked to pay hundreds for information on relatives

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Tuesday, 19 March - 05:00

    Families say they were promised details of relatives’ whereabouts after contacting people they thought were linked to NGO in Spain

    Families 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 of their searches for missing relatives that had gone on for years, they had made contact with people they believed to be connected to an NGO in southern Spain who said they were able to help them.

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      Libya coastguard accused of hampering attempt to save more than 170 people

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Monday, 18 March - 15:19

    Médecins Sans Frontières says ‘dangerous manoeuvres’ by coastguard put refugees at even greater risk

    An 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 in international waters on Saturday: a small fibreglass boat carrying 28 people and a double-deck wooden vessel with 143 people onboard, which appeared to be in distress.

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      Home Office attempt to deport UK-born man was illegal, judge says

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Monday, 18 March - 14:30

    Tribunal finds that Dmitry Lima, who has never left the UK, is British citizen and should not be deported to Portugal

    The Home Office acted unlawfully in trying to deport a British-born man who has never left the country to Portugal, from where his parents arrived more than 30 years ago, a judge has ruled.

    Dmitry Lima , 28, who was born in Lambeth, south London, does not speak Portuguese and has never travelled abroad but in 2022 he was given a deportation order by the Home Office after serving a prison sentence for drugs offences and for carrying a Taser.

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