Archive for the ‘Migrant Crisis’ Category

Slovenia Starts Removing Wire Fence on Border with Croatia – Total Croatia News

Photo: Hrvoje Jelavic/PIXSELL

ZAGREB, 15 July 2022 - Asmall unit of the Slovenian army on Fridaystarted removing the anti-migrant wire fence on the Slovenian side of the border with Croatianear the small border crossing Vivodina-Krmaina andthe town of Metlika.

Slovenia's Interior Minister Tatjana Bobnarattended theremoval of the fence, saying that it had a great symbolic meaning.

Bobnar said that the removal of anti-migrant barriers, which Prime Minister Robert Golob described as inhumane and as notservingthe purpose for which they were set up, is a sign of a change in the new government's policy towards migrants and refugees, as it has committed to the highest respect for human rights and speeding up the processing of asylum requests.

She added that around 51 kilometres of razorwire currently exists on the border with Croatia,that the army can remove 150 to 200 meters per day, and estimates that it will take at least 150 working days to remove.

"Our intention is to first remove the wire fence" and then to "gradually remove" the metal panel fence, in cooperation with local communities, she said.

About 2.5 million hasbeen allocated to have the panel fence removed, she added.

According to data recently published by Slovenia's Interior Ministry, a total of 135,372 meters of panel fence and 60,595 meters of razorwirewere erected on the border with Croatia. The wire fenceswere installed at the end of 2015 by the then Slovenian government, led by Miro Cerar, due to fears of the migrant crisis at the time.

The expansion of the initial anti-immigrant barriers after Cerar's government continued by succeeding governments.The razor wire fence was later gradually replaced with less hazardous panel fencing.

In September last year, the government of former Prime Minister Janez Jana donated about 40 kilometres of anti-migrant barriers to Lithuania from its stockpiles so that it could more effectively protect the 508-kilometre-long land border with Belarus. At that time, Lithuania was experiencing an uncontrolled influx of refugees who were deliberately sent across the border towards the West by the regime of Belarusian President Lukashenko.

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Slovenia Starts Removing Wire Fence on Border with Croatia - Total Croatia News

Penny Mordaunt vows to halt Channel migrant crossings by cutting off fuel supplies and boats… – The Sun

WANNABE-PM Penny Mordaunt will cut off fuel supplies and boats from people smugglers in France in a bold bid to halt perilous Channel crossings.

The leading 'Stop Rishi' candidate promised to crack down on sick traffickers upstream - and offered France Britain's help to guard their borders better against illegal migrants.

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She also wants to slash the millions of pounds of taxpayer cash spent putting up Channel crossers in hotels.

The Tory grassroots darling would also stick by Priti Patel's policy of sending illegal migrants to Rwanda if she gets the keys to No10 - which is hugely popular with members.

The former defence secretary warned that the migration crisis is at risk of getting worse as the world gets more unstable - calling on the world to unite to stop lives being lost to dangerous gangs at sea.

She told The Sun: "We must crack down on the evil and barbaric practice that exploits vulnerable people to arrive here illegally.

"Ive spent a long time in the Mediterranean mapping migrant routes in the Med and North Libya - we should be doing more to work on what would be in Frances interest in regards to their Southern border.

"The rules governing all of this are completely unfit for the world we live in today - we need a new diplomatic narrative."

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Penny Mordaunt vows to halt Channel migrant crossings by cutting off fuel supplies and boats... - The Sun

Claire Keegan’s novella Small Things Like These wins 2022 Orwell Prize for political fiction – CBC.ca

Claire Keegan'snovella Small Things Like These has won this year's Orwell Prize for political fiction.

The Orwell Prize for political fiction is a 3,000 (approx. $4,640.84 Cdn) award that was launched in 2019. It is a companion to the Orwell Prize for political writing, the Orwell Prize for journalism and the Orwell Prize for exposing Britain's social evils.

The Orwell Prizes 2022 were presented in an awards gala on Thursday, July 14 in London.

Set in Ireland in the mid-1980s,Small Things Like These is amoving tale of faith, forgiveness and the authority of the Catholic Church. The book's protagonist,Bill Furlong,is faced with a moral dilemma when he discovers a shivering, ragged girl locked in the shed of a local convent.

Small Things Like These was also a 2022 Rathbones Folio Prize finalistfor the best literary work of the year.

"The focus of this novella is close, precise and unwavering: a beautifully written evocation of Ireland in the 1980s, precisely rendered; of a good man and his ordinary life; and of the decision he makes that unlocks major, present questions about social care, women's lives and collective morality," the jury said in a statement.

"The very tightness of focus, and Keegan's marvellous control of her instrument as a writer, makes for a story at once intensely particular and powerfully resonant."

Keegan is the Irish author of prize-winning short fiction, including two story collections, Antarctica and Walk the Blue Fields.

In a recentinterview with Writers and Company's Eleanor Wachtel, Keegan saidSmall Things Like These explores moral philosophy, human decency and the authority of organized religion.

"People were hugely brutalized in this country by the Catholic Church. They were so far removed from any type of decency, they didn't even know what decency was anymore. And they were also rewarded financially for it," said Keegan.

"People get lost morally and I mean truly lost. And then they hide behind a screen of morality which the church gives you to wear. It's very powerful. People become afraid of you, and look up to you."

LISTEN | Claire Keegan on Writers and Company:

Writers and Company1:05:50Claire Keegans Small Things Like These is a story of moral crisis, heroism and the human heart

The Orwell Prize for political writing went to the book The Fourth Time, We Drowned by Irish author Sally Hayden. The nonfiction work examines the migrant crisis across North Africa and the experiences of refugees fleeing dictatorships, violence, persecution and war.

"Hayden's reporting is an extraordinary exploration of a modern reality using modern means: truly a book of our times. While many people seeking refuge from the terrible logics of repression, war and poverty cannot easily cross frontiers, phone and Facebook messages can," the jury said in a statement.

"Both Sally Hayden and Claire Keegan have, in very different ways, written gripping stories about things that should alarm us: there are awful truths right at the heart of our societies and systems. However, in their wit, elegance and compassion, these powerful winning books also help us think about the choices we make, and how to make the future better. Orwell would be proud," said Jean Seaton, the director of The Orwell Foundation, of the 2022 book prizes.

This year's Orwell Prize for journalism went to the Guardian journalist George Monbiot.

Ed Thomas won this year's prize for exposing Britain's social evils for his work on the impact of the COVID-19 crisis in the U.K. for BBC News.

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Claire Keegan's novella Small Things Like These wins 2022 Orwell Prize for political fiction - CBC.ca

Woman and child found dead in migrant boat off Canaries – The National

A woman and a girl of 4 were found dead on a migrant boat off Spain's Canary Islands, Spanish rescue services said on Friday.

A total of 27 people had left the west African coast in a barely seaworthy dinghy, seeking to reach the Canaries archipelago.

The Spanish coastguard said the two bodies were discovered after a fishing boat came to the vessel's assistance on Thursday.

Officials said a third person was airlifted to hospital with chest pains.

The boat was found off the coast of the island of Lanzarote. Some reports, citing local officials on the Canary Islands, said the woman and child had been crushed in the overcrowded dinghy.

Another boat, said to be carrying about 50 people, was intercepted on Friday.

Non-government organisations say women and children are increasingly embarking on the dangerous route to the islands of EU member Spain.

The death in March last year of a girl of 2 from Mali, after days fighting for her life in a Canaries hospital, sparked debate in Spain.

She had made the perilous journey with 51 other migrants, including her mother and sister.

This year, 9,308 migrants have arrived in the islands up 27 per cent on the same period last year, the Spanish Interior Ministry said.

This is despite a decrease in migrants trying to reach Spain in recent weeks, after Madrid and Morocco normalised diplomatic relations. This followed a months-long crisis centred on the disputed Western Sahara territory.

Many migrants trying to reach the Canaries set sail from southern Morocco, near Western Sahara.

Last year, more than 40,000 migrants arrived in Spain, mainly via Morocco.

Spanish NGO Caminando Fronteras said 4,404 migrants died or went missing while making the journey twice as many as in 2020.

Updated: July 15, 2022, 7:20 PM

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Woman and child found dead in migrant boat off Canaries - The National

‘I didn’t want to talk about Syria while waiting for the bus or having a haircut’ – The Irish Times

The farmers market in Galway, where my husband and I stopped regularly, became a place where our identity was open for discussion. People usually noticed that we were foreigners, even if we didnt talk much. One time, Housam and I were walking holding hands when we passed by a group of young men hanging out. They smiled at us and one of them said, You are the most beautiful non-Irish couple Ive seen around.

The follow-up questions that came after statements like this, exposing my nationality, were unique. At first, I loved satisfying peoples curiosity: better they hear it from me than from the media. But sometimes it was overwhelming, and I didnt want to talk about home while waiting for the bus or having a haircut. Are you going back? Are you Muslims? You dont look Syrian. What do you think of al-Assad? How do you think it will end?

Housam was more patient than me. He explained politics and religion and extremism even to those who didnt want to listen. Once, we were blamed for forcing the Irish to travel overseas looking for jobs. Ironically, it came from someone who was not Irish. In general, the Irish were warm and loving. Having their own share of wars and troubles made them more empathetic to the Syrians around them. And for that I was always grateful.

In September 2015, during one of our strolls in the city, we noticed a brown shipping container standing in the middle of a shopping street. Eight volunteers had decided to lock themselves inside the container for 24 hours with just two bottles of water each, a portable toilet and no food. The art installation, designed by the Giddy Biddy Collective, aimed to raise awareness of the migrant crisis and the struggles endured by migrants to reach a safe haven. I walked away to hide my tears and my identity. I checked Twitter later to read more and decided to leave a virtual thank-you note for telling my peoples story.

Suad Aldarra and her husband, Housam Ziad. Photograph: Aidan Crawley

Luckily, one of the volunteers replied, and thats how I met Cait Noone, a dean at Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology and one of the supporters of the project, who invited me to come back and say hi. Caits smile can be spotted from the end of the world and would make you walk towards her like an insect following the light. She noticed the accumulated tears in my eyes, and she opened her arms to hug me. I didnt resist the generous embrace of a stranger. I needed that hug, but I couldnt understand why. I didnt go in containers or on boats. I didnt drown. I wasnt kidnapped or tortured or sold for slavery and sex by human traffickers. I am safe. But why am I feeling vulnerable?

A journalist there wanted to do a story about Housam and me. We talked about the war and the struggles, hoping to raise awareness. It was only after wed finished and left that we realised how much we had been through. We had never talked about it.

Our story was published in the Connacht Tribune. I dont know if it made much of an impact. Still, when I saw a picture of Housam and me with a full-page article in the newspaper, I realised that our normal life had become a hot story, accompanied by words like survive and tragedy and home and hope and new beginnings and gratefulness. We had become news, despite our efforts to escape it.

Every morning when I scanned the news, Syria would be in the headlines. Country X is fed up with the refugees. Country Y is closing its borders in their faces. A boat sank carrying refugees from Syria. A Syrian refugee did something bad. A Syrian refugee did something good.

Every morning, I read the news. I read it all. I looked at the dead bodies, the exploded remains, the miserable faces at borders, the bodies skeletal from hunger, the weeping mothers and the scared kids.

I would close my web browser, wash my face, drink my coffee and go to work, helpless, hopeless and in denial, fighting the pressing thought that I didnt deserve to survive. I would greet my colleagues and complain about the weather and the overpriced food in the cafeteria and other first-world problems.

Early in 2016, I got an invitation through Euraxess to speak at the European Commission in Brussels about the challenges of the refugee crisis, and to share my story, along with two other Syrians.

It was overwhelming to be in a room with everyone talking about the one topic I didnt want to talk about. But I was desperate to do something, anything, to help Syria, to heal Syria. I thought I was over the idea of having a homeland I couldnt return to, but the memories were pushing hard to the surface, and I tried my best to push them back down. I fought the urge to cry whenever someone mentioned a statistic about displaced, dead, drowned or illegal refugees. I tried not to think about how those numbers and percentages represented people I knew and cared about.

I have to be strong, I thought. I have to represent the resilient Syrian, the one willing to do the impossible to survive.

Then it was my turn to talk. It was tricky to do this without opening the box of memories. I kept it professional. I did not talk about how I was terrified by the explosions that happened a few metres away from me. I did not mention how I used to go to sleep early, wearing many layers of clothing, because it was too cold and too dark to stay awake. I skipped the part about my engagement and marriage during the war. I briefly mentioned my father-in-laws martyrdom, but I definitely did not mention how we saw photos of his body all over social media. How it haunts us still.

I never talked about how we didnt dare to dream of having a kid because we were too damaged to raise a child in this unfair world. I skipped many stories, a lot of pain and tears that had no place at that conference. Instead, I talked about timelines and statistics, gave examples of ongoing initiatives and suggested ideas that could be life-changing for many refugees. The conference ended with a lot of applause and I felt good for doing my bit and not falling apart.

On the plane back to the place I called home, I closed my eyes above the clouds and let the pilot do his bit. The flight attendant broadcast a message to the passengers over the tannoy. It wasnt about seatbelts, nor was it about our location or destination. It was about Syria.

Syrian children are facing a lot of pain and suffering from cold and hunger. Please help us raise funds to support them. I looked around to see people getting out their wallets and putting money in an envelope with the Unicef logo on it. I was grateful for all the kind hearts on that plane, but heartbroken to hear my countrys name mentioned in a donation campaign.

At that moment, all the blocked memories rushed in. The miserable faces, the dead bodies, the explosions, my little cat, my grandmother. My whole life burst from my overloaded memory, and I wept.

Suad Aldarra now lives in Dublin with her husband and son. This is an edited extract from her new memoir, I Dont Want to Talk About Home, published by Transworld.

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'I didn't want to talk about Syria while waiting for the bus or having a haircut' - The Irish Times