The Nation Newspaper

Tag: MIGRANTS

  • 128 Nigerians, other migrants drown in Mediterranean Sea

    International Organisation on Migration (IOM), said 128 migrants, comprising Nigerians and other West Africans, died while crossing Mediterranean Sea to Europe between March 6 and 26, 2017.

    The UN agency in a statement by its spokesman Flavio Di Giacomo, stated that the number made it 649 deaths recorded in the first 86 days of 2017.

    The IOM spokesperson said other nationals included Gambians, Ivorians, Ghanaians, Malians, Senegalese and Guineans (both Guinea-Bissau and Conakry).

    Di Giacomo explained that 521 deaths were recorded in the first 65 days of 2017.

    He said the number of deaths recorded in the first 86 days of 2017 was higher compared with 566 deaths recorded in the same period on March 26, 2016.

    He said 26,589 migrants and refugees entered Europe by sea in 2017 through March 26, with over 80 per cent arriving in Italy and the rest in Spain and Greece.

    Di Giacomo said the number was, however, lower compared with 163,895 recorded through the first 86 days of 2016.

    The spokesperson explained that 2,320 migrants were brought to land between March 23 and 24 in 2017.

    He added that another set of 1,160 migrants which did not include the number above were brought to land on March 25 and 26.

    He stated that one corpse was found on a dinghy, which was carrying 138 migrants.

    Di Giacomo said Proactiva OpenArms, an NGO, retrieved the remains of five migrants from a capsized dinghy in addition to a sixth victim it retrieved near the original site of the shipwreck.

    According to him IOM believes the dinghy found by OpenArms is the same one that IOM Libya reported was rescued by Libyan fishermen who saved 54 people on 21 March.

    He said that the 54 survivors brought to Libya said that approximately 120 migrants were on board including six dead.

    Di Giacomo said 66 victims remained unaccounted for in that tragedy.

    He further explained that a vessel “Iuventa” of the German CSO “Jugend Rettet” claimed it spotted another ship sinking six miles off the position of the “Golfo Azzurro.”

    The spokesperson stated that IOM had no further information about sinking vessel, adding that The Jugend Rettet was the vessel that retrieved the remains of the sixth victim.

    “We are trying to understand whether the ship found by OpenArms is the same one that was rescued earlier this month by Libyan fishermen.

    “This may considerably change the number of missing migrants. For the moment, it is only possible to confirm that there are 66 victims,” Di Giacomo quoted Federico Soda, Director for IOM’s Mediterranean operations as saying.

    According to him, this tragic event reminds us all of the massive loss of lives in the tragedies occurring on the central Mediterranean route where over 590 migrants died in 2017 alone.

    “That is 418 more than last year on this route during the same period.

    “In this context, the presence of many rescue ships at sea is crucial; without them, the number of fatalities would be inevitably higher”, he said.

    Di Giacomo said IOM had received information about the remains of a 15-year old African girl retrieved from the shores of Sabratah by the Libyan Red Crescent.

    He said that puts the total confirmed dead found on Libyan beaches in 2017 at 164, of which 20 were retrieved in March.

    He added that the number rescued in 2017 by the Libyan Coast Guard and others were 3,457. (NAN)

  • South African police disperse anti-migrant rally with rubber bullet

    South African Police used rubber bullets and stun grenades to disperse anti-immigration demonstrators and their opponents in the country’s administrative capital of Pretoria, local media reported on Friday.

    The presidency called for calm, however, the newspaper Times Live reported that a student caught between police and protesters had been injured.

    Before the interventions, hundreds of demonstrators had been locked in a stand-off with migrants, both sides armed with rocks and sticks, broadcaster eNCA reported.

    The rally followed the reported looting of dozens of foreign-owned shops in Pretoria earlier this week.

    More than 130 people were arrested within 24 hours, police representative Khomotso Phlahlane said in a press conference broadcast live by eNCA.

    Tensions between migrants and locals have been reported in several communities, the presidency said in a statement, calling for restraint.

    “It is wrong to brandish all non-nationals as drug dealers or human traffickers. Let us isolate those who commit such crimes and work with government to have them arrested, without stereotyping and causing harm to innocent people,’’ the statement quoted President Jacob Zuma as saying.

    The Nelson Mandela Foundation criticized “the growing behaviour of `othering’ among Africans,’’ adding that the country’s late first democratic president had firmly condemned xenophobia.

    South Africa, which has an unemployment rate of about 25 per cent, has seen sporadic violence against migrants from other African countries, who are accused of taking jobs.

    Attacks against migrants claimed nine lives in April 2015.

    The regional superpower had about 2.4 million migrants in 2013, the largest number in southern Africa, according to the International Organisation for Migration. (dpa/NAN)

  • Seven migrants arrested for attempted murder

    Seven migrants arrested for attempted murder

    Seven young migrants have been charged with attempted murder in Germany after they allegedly tried to set a homeless man ablaze on Christmas Day.

    Six of the suspects, aged between 15 and 18, surrendered to police immediately after CCTV pictures of the incident in Berlin were released.

    The victim, who was attacked in an underground station, was unharmed. A seventh suspect, a 21-year-old who police say was the main perpetrator, was arrested near his home.

    Six of those detained are from Syria, one is Libyan. All of them came to Berlin as asylum seekers in 2014 and 2016, according to the prosecutor’s office.

    The homeless man, aged 37, was sleeping on a bench under sheets of paper in the Schoenleinstrasse underground station in the southern Berlin district of Neukoelln, when he was set on fire about 02:00 (01:00 GMT) on Sunday.

  • Nearly 20,000 migrants turned back from Germany in 2016

    Nearly 20,000 migrants turned back from Germany in 2016

    German police are on track to turn away some 20,000 migrants this year at the country’s borders, airports and sea ports, local media reported on Wednesday.

    From January until the end of November, 19,720 people were stopped from entering the country, the Neue Osnabruecker Zeitung (NOZ) reported, citing numbers from the German Federal Police.

    Statistics for December are yet to be compiled, the newspaper said.

    The 2016 number marked a more than 100 per cent increase in comparison to 2015 when 8,913 migrants were stopped from entering the country over the course of the whole year.

    Despite the overall increase, the newspaper reported that the number of people turned away by police has been going down in recent months.

    This is partly due to the fact that Germany’s border controls now only take place at the border to Austria, NOZ said.

    Afghan asylum seekers were turned back most often, with 3,695 people affected in 2016 so far. In addition, 2,142 Syrians, 1,794 Iraqis and 1,237 Nigerians have been stopped from entering Germany so far this year.

    Despite being part of the control-free Schengen area, Germany decided in November to extend border controls at the Germany-Austria border until February.

    German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said that Germany had to take the step until the European Union was able to sufficiently control its external borders.

  • Illegal migrants: FG backs Kenya over arrest of 26 Nigerians

    The Federal Government has backed Kenyan Government on the arrest of 26 Nigerians in the country on Oct. 22 for flouting visa laws.

    A statement by the Ministry Of Foreign Affairs Acting Spokesperson, Jane Bassey-Adams on Tuesday in Abuja, alleged that the arrested persons were not in possession of valid document for their stay in Kenya.

    Bassey-Adams said that the Immigration Authority of Kenya acted in accordance with its domestic laws regarding the arrest of illegal immigrants.

    She said that the law enabled the authority to crack down on foreigners whose visas had elapsed but remained in Kenya illegally.

    The spokesperson said some of them had also been indicted for criminal activities including advance fee fraud, warning that the government would not support any Nigerian who broke the law of her host country.

    “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs wishes to state that the Government of Nigeria does not support, encourage or condone any form of illegal migration and condemns all acts of criminality in its entirety.

    “The ministry wishes to inform members of the public that the Nigeria High Commission in Nairobi has since sprang into action to ascertain the circumstances of the arrest,” she stated.

    The ministry, however, called on Nigerians living abroad to abide by the law of the country of their residence.

    It also encouraged Nigeria immigrants to be law abiding and desist from any action capable of tarnishing the image of the country or bring the country into disrepute.

    “It will continue to engage countries of residence of all Nigerians abroad with a view to ensuring that they are treated with dignity and respect in accordance with international minimum standard,” she said. (NAN)

  • Austria threatens to sue Hungary over migrants

    Austria’s Interior Minister on Wednesday threatened to sue Hungary if it refused to take back migrants who had crossed their shared border, as political tensions mounted over immigration before presidential elections.

    Austria’s government has been facing a challenge from the far-right Freedom Party.

    It has repeatedly accused Hungary of letting migrants enter its territory in the face of EU rules that asylum seekers must stay in the first country they enter in the bloc.

    Hungary, itself has been preparing for a referendum on whether to accept a Europe-wide asylum quota.

    The Interior Minister, Wolfgang Sobotka while responding to a question on Hungary’s refusal to give ground said that most refugees enter its territory from other EU states.

    “Notably from Italy and Greece, in a growing blame game.

    “States or groups of states that permanently break the law have to expect legal consequences, in that case, the (Austrian) republic must sue.

    “The republic must see that the European Union acts according to the law, full stop,” he said without specifying what legal process he was considering.

    Budapest built a fence along its border with non-EU member Serbia to stem the flow of hundreds of thousands of people, many of them fleeing violence in the Middle East and North Africa.

    Both Hungary and Austria had said that the situation was now broadly under control.

    A Hungarian government spokesman dismissed Sobotka’s call in an emailed statement, saying “the vast majority of migrants had arrived in other EU states first.

    “Hungary cannot and will not take responsibility for, and suffer the consequences of, the irresponsible conduct of other member states.

    “Austria and Germany which expressly suggested ignoring the rules, or for other states like Greece that neglected to do their job,” the spokesman said.
    Germany and Austria initially welcomed large numbers of refugees from the Middle East and Afghanistan.

    However, Vienna started to toughen its asylum rules earlier this year and introduced an annual limit on the number of asylum requests it accepts.

     

  • 15 migrants die off Libyan coast

    At least 15 bodies were recovered and more than 2,700 boat migrants rescued off the coast of Libya on Monday, the Italian coastguard said, in another day of mass departures from North Africa.

    Italy’s navy and coastguard, ships patrolling on a European Union anti-smuggling mission, vessels run by humanitarian groups, and a commercial tug boat aided in the rescues, Reuters reported.

    Earlier in the day, the Italian Navy said six bodies had been found after migrants fell out of a leaking rubber boat. The coastguard gave no further details.

    The migrants were saved from 19 dangerously overcrowded rubber boats and four small boats, the coastguard said. People smugglers operate freely in Libya, cashing in on migrants desperate to reach Europe.

    Last week calmer seas and Libya’s lawlessness opened the way for smugglers to ship 13,000 migrants across the Mediterranean Sea in just four days.

    Europe’s worst migrant crisis since World War Two is now focused on Italy, at Europe’s southern frontier, where some 93,000 people had arrived by the end of August, according to Italy’s Interior Ministry.

    The death toll on the route from North Africa to Italy has jumped to one migrant for every 42 making the crossing, compared to one in every 52 last year, a United Nations refugee agency spokesman said last week.

  • Italy rescues 6,500 migrants from Mediterranean

    Some 6,500 migrants were saved off the Libyan coast in 40 separate rescue missions on Monday, the Italian coast guard said on Twitter, in one of the largest influxes of refugees in a single day so far this year.

    The migrants were packed on board scores of boats, many of them flimsy rubber dinghies that become dangerously unstable in high seas.

    Most were believed to be Africans, Reuters reported.

    Data from the International Organization for Migration released on Friday said around 105,000 migrants had reached Italy by boat so far in 2016, many of them setting sail from Libya.

    An estimated 2,726 men, women and children have died over the same period trying to make the journey.

    About 1,100 migrants were rescued from boats in the Strait of Sicily on Sunday as they tried to reach Europe, the coast guard said. More refugees were expected to set sail this week because of favourable weather conditions.

    Italy has been on the front line of Europe’s migrant crisis for three years, and more than 400,000 have successfully made the voyage to Italy from North Africa since the beginning of 2014, fleeing violence and poverty.

  • Five migrants drown off Turkish coast

    No fewer than five migrants, including a toddler, drowned when their boat capsized off Turkey’s Aegean coast, Turkish media reported on Thursday.

    The migrants aboard the boat included Afghan and Iranian nationals.

    It said that they were trying to reach the Greek island of Lesbos.

    The report said that the boat, which departed from Ayvacik in Turkey’s western province of Canakkale, sank 500 meters from the Turkish coast due to bad weather.

    Preliminary reports said that the Turkish coast guard rescued nine migrants but two more remained missing.

    The capsizing came one day after the Turkish and Greek prime ministers voiced their determination to prevent illegal traffickers and migration in the Aegean Sea.

    Earlier this week, the EU and Turkey held a special summit in Brussels, where Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu asked for 3 billion euros (3.3 billion dollars) in fresh aid.

    It noted that it would be in return for Turkey’s help in stemming the flow of refugees into Europe and accepting those who went to Europe back to Turkey.

    However, over 80,000 refugees were rescued by Turkish coast guards in 2015 alone, while nearly 4,000 died on their way to Greek islands via Turkey.

  • Group seeks enforcement of migrants’ rights

    Group seeks enforcement of migrants’ rights

    A group, the Network of Migration Research in Africa (NOMRA), has called for the enforcement of the rights of migrants, both regular and irregular ones.

    It urged the media to put more effort in reporting issues of migration.

    These were contained in a communiqué issued at the end of a two-day training for media practitioners organised by NOMRA in Lagos.

    The group said media houses should have immigration desks to adequately cover migration issues.

    Story ideas were explored at the training, including the need to highlight conditions of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and their camps, state of Nigerians in prisons abroad, executions in foreign countries without fair trial, state of embassies abroad, among other rights abuses of, and by, migrants.

    The training was part of the European Union (EU) funded “Promoting Better Management of Migration in Nigeria”.

    The project aims to contribute towards improved migration governance.  It is jointly implemented by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) with a focus to manage regular and irregular migration.

    Key activities include building capacity of government officials to collect data,  engage diaspora, protect migrants’ rights and welfare, strengthen Civil Society Organisations (CSO) involvement in the migration sector, and formulate national-level policy and strategy.

    Activities also cover major technical areas such as improvement of border management, migrant screening/holding centres, visa policies and procedures and overall approaches to training of government staff working in these areas.

    The project is implemented in close collaboration with several key Nigerian partner agencies including the Federal Ministry of Labour and Productivity, National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), National Commission for Refugees Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons (NCFRMI), National Population Commission, Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) and Nigeria National Volunteer Service (NNVS).

    Among others, the project has supported the establishment of a Technical Working Group (TWG) on migration and development comprising government representatives, the civil society and the academia.