The Australian government said that it would reopen a mothballed island detention camp in anticipation of a new wave of asylum seekers arriving by boat after Parliament passed legislation that would give sick asylum seekers easier access to mainland hospitals.
The Christmas Island immigration detention camp, south of Jakarta, Indonesia, was a favorite target of people smugglers who brought asylum seekers from Asia, Africa and the Middle East in rickety boats from Indonesian ports...
Australia's Prime Minister Scott Morrison is campaigning to block a bill that would let sick asylum seekers in offshore centres get treatment in Australia.
Mr Morrison said the bill would "take control from the government", and "unleash a world of woe".
Australia has sent asylum seekers who arrive by boat to detention centres on the Pacific islands of Nauru and Manus.
Its tough immigration policy has been repeatedly criticised.
"The problem with the bill is it...
Asylum seekers and refugees are waiting as long as five years for specialist medical treatment even when it has been formally recommended by the Australian government’s contracted doctors, new data has revealed.
Support workers and medical groups have accused the government of maintaining a “dangerous and sometimes fatal” system of care on Manus Island and Nauru, as MPs prepare to vote on a medical transfers bill which could see up to 1,000 people access long-awaited treatment within...
The Swedish student who livestreamed her onboard protest against the deportation of an Afghan asylum seeker will go on trial.
Elin Ersson will appear at Gothenburg District Court, charged with violating Sweden’s Aviation Act.
Ersson protested in July last year against the Swedish government's policy of deporting some rejected asylum seekers to Afghanistan by boarding an Istanbul-bound flight that carried an Afghan man who was to be returned home after being denied asylum.
...
Nine years after they were forced to flee the war in Syria, the family of a 15-year-old boy whose abuse at the hands of school bullies in the UK was captured in a viral video clip have been forced to move again.
In an interview with the Guardian, the father of the boy – who can only be referred to as Jamal – said the family left their home in Huddersfield after people who had seen the video threatened them with violence.
“We left Syria for a new future here,” he said. “We hoped...
Refugees and migrants attempting to reach Europe via the Mediterranean Sea lost their lives at an alarming rate in 2018, as cuts in search and rescue operations reinforced its position as the world’s deadliest sea crossing. The latest ‘Desperate Journeys’ report, released today by UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, says six lives were lost on average every day.
An estimated 2,275 died or went missing crossing the Mediterranean in 2018, despite a major drop in the number of arrivals...
At least five migrants have died and more than 130 missing after two boats capsized off the coast of Djibouti, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said.
According to a statement released by the IOM on Tuesday, the boats sank off the coast of Godoria, a mangrove area in Djibouti's northeast.
"After being alerted by local residents, a team of gendarmerie gathered this afternoon near the reported site of the disaster and discovered two survivors as well as the...
The Netherlands refused on Monday an Italian request to take in 47 migrants on a humanitarian ship that is being blocked from Italian ports, saying there was a need to distinguish between genuine refugees and economic migrants.
The Sea Watch 3, run by a German humanitarian group and flying a Dutch flag, rescued the migrants from a rubber boat off the Libyan coast more than a week ago. Since then it has been buffeted by high winds and 7-meter (23 ft) waves.
Italy’s Deputy Prime...
More than 500 people are being ousted from a refugee reception centre in a town close to Rome in the first major eviction since Italy’s rightwing populist government enacted hardline immigration measures into law.
Thirty people were evicted from the centre, the second-largest of its kind in Italy and the place where Pope Francis washed residents’ feet as part of his Easter ritual in 2016, in Castelnuovo di Porto on Tuesday. A further 75 were removed on Wednesday, with the remaining...
In Slovenia, police have been accused of breaching international law in dealing with applications for asylum. Police have rejected the claims.
Slovenia’s Commissioner for Information, Mojca Prelesnik, has called on security forces to make public documents on the way migrants are treated at the border with Croatia.According to Prelesnik, the treatment and procedures for asylum requests were not in line with international legislation because applications were considered regardless of...
Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio on Monday reiterated that France’s policies in Africa were creating poverty and causing migration, hours after France summoned the Italian ambassador to Paris to protest his assertions.
“France is one of those countries that by printing money for 14 African states prevents their economic development and contributes to the fact that the refugees leave and then die in the sea or arrive on our coasts,” Di Maio told reporters.
Di Maio was...
Four aid workers were convicted Friday on charges connected to their efforts to leave food and water for migrants in an Arizona wildlife refuge along the U.S.-Mexico border.
The volunteers, who are members of the faith-based humanitarian aid group No More Deaths, were caught on Aug. 13, 2017, by a Federal Wildlife officer as they left water jugs, beans and other supplies for migrants in Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge, which shares a 50-mile border with Mexico.
No More...
In 2018, more refugees were transferred from Germany to other EU member states than ever before, according to an Interior Ministry report obtained by German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung. The report was a response to a parliamentary inquiry by the Left Party.
Some 8,658 asylum-seekers who were required to leave Germany did so between January and the end of November 2018. The previous year, 7,102 were deported to other states.
As such, the proportion of completed transfers from...
Some 117 migrants who left Libya in a rubber dinghy two days ago are unaccounted for, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said on Jan. 19, after three people were rescued from the vessel after it sank in the Mediterranean.
"The three survivors told us they were 120 when they left Garabulli, in Libya, on Jan. 17 night. After 10 to 11 hours at sea ... (the boat) started sinking and people started drowning," IOM spokesman Flavio Di Giacomo said on Jan. 19.
He said...
The US government may have separated “thousands” more immigrant children from their parents than previously known but inadequate record-keeping means the exact number is still unclear, an internal watchdog said on Wednesday.
The Office of Inspector General at the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said the agency had identified many more children in addition to the 2,737 that were included as part of a class action lawsuit challenging the separations brought by the...