Americas: 'Many drown' in Ecuador shipwreck
from the
BBC:
More than 100 people are feared drowned after an Ecuadorean ship carrying illegal migrants sank off the coast of Colombia, local authorities have said.
...
Ecuadorean migrants often use the route across the Pacific Ocean to try to reach the United States.
..."between 115 and 119 people" were on board the ship, which left Manta without permission, the Colombian navy said. The vessel was only intended for 15 passengers
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Belgium: Asylum seekers in protest against surprise expulsions
From
Expatica:
Asylum seekers across Belgium protested on Tuesday against surprise deportations being carried out by Belgian immigration authorities.
In Brussels, some 100 protestors demonstrated outside the refugee shelter Klein Kasteeltje, newspaper 'De Standaard' reported on Wednesday. Asylum seekers have also stopped sleeping at the Brussels refugee centre.
The residents claim that more than 60 refugees with appeals still pending with the Council of State have been deported from other refugee centres since the start of August.
And some 50 asylum seekers staying at the refugee shelter in Jumet sought sanctuary in the Saint-Christophe basilica in Charleroi on
Tuesday.
Among the asylum seekers seeking refuge were children, including a baby just several weeks old
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UK: Immigration centres 'inadequate'
from
the BBC
Facilities at four short-term immigrant holding centres have been condemned as "inadequate" by the prisons watchdog.
Dover Asylum Screening Centre, a centre at London City Airport and two at Gatwick Airport are not suitable for overnight stays, its report says.
Detainees were found to have slept on tables or plastic chairs, it adds.
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UK: Iraqi refugees seekers detained to be deported
from
The Guardian
Scores of Iraqi failed asylum seekers are being detained around Britain in preparation for the first programme of forced removals, despite United Nations advice against such deportations, the Home Office confirmed last night.
Refugee groups said the move was "appalling and dangerous", with the volatile situation in Iraq meaning it is too soon to send people home. The Home Office said ministers do not accept that all parts of Iraq are affected by insurgent action and equally unsafe.
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Australia: Wrongful detentions: 56 held for 3 weeks
from
ABC:
The Federal Government has revealed that in the past five years the Immigration Department has wrongly detained 56 people for more than 21 days.
Former Australian Federal Police commissioner Mick Palmer found serious and deep-seated problems in the Immigration Department when he investigated the wrongful detention of Cornelia Rau and the deportation of Vivian Solon.
The ombudsman is investigating another 201 cases where people were detained but then released because they were in Australia legitimately.
It has now been revealed that in 56 of those cases, people were in detention for 21 days or more.
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Spain: Ten Children On Intercepted Migrant-Smuggling Boat
From
allAfrica.com:
The closure of Spain's borders to immigrants wishing to enter and live in this country without first obtaining a work contract has not curbed the continuous influx of undocumented migrants, including infants, who by law cannot be deported.
Ten babies and 19 adults were on a small boat that was intercepted late Monday by the Spanish police around 30 km from the Strait of Gibraltar.
Sixteen of the adults were women, one of whom was pregnant. They all came from sub-Saharan Africa, although the police have not yet determined their nationalities.
Another overcrowded boat carrying 24 Moroccan men was intercepted a few hours later.
.... poverty in Africa will continue to make the search for new horizons in prosperous Europe inevitable.
"There are no walls or police or military controls that can stop people from trying to get into Europe in search of a better life for themselves and their families," said Yolanda Villavicencio, president of the America-Spain Solidarity and Cooperation Association.
In seeking a better life, people put their lives at risk, because the conditions in which they are forced to travel have become increasingly dangerous.
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UK: Racists petrol bomb migrant workers
from the
Belfast Telegraph:
Five Polish immigrants today narrowly escaped injury in a racist attack on a Co Londonderry house. ... It is understood there were five people, all of Polish origin, inside the house at the time. The incident today brought widespread condemnation and an offer of help from a Polish welfare group in Derry.
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Netherlands: 39th Day of Refugees' Hunger Strike
from
Expatica:
The hunger strike by five Iranian men who have been denied asylum in the Netherlands has reached its 39th day.
Two of the men have written a letter threatening to take legal action if the Immigration and Naturalisation Service (IND) does not respond positively by noon on Tuesday to their demand to have access to the files of their cases.
...
A doctor with the GGD health centre, assigned to monitor the group, says they are "more determined than ever to continue with their action". They are in a very bad way. "Some can only move around in a wheelchair. They can barely stand or walk," the doctor said.
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Europe: Nineteen African migrants drown
From
Reuters AlertNet:
Nineteen African illegal migrants drowned on Friday [5 August] when their rickety boat capsized off Morocco's southern Atlantic coast on its way to Spanish Canary islands ... Their bodies washed up off the Atlantic-coast city of Tarfaya
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UK: New law 'to split' refugee family
From
the Guardian:
A mother who claims she fled persecution in Africa but has been denied asylum in Britain may be parted from five of her six children on Friday when the Home Office withdraws her benefits.
Ngiedi Lusukumu, who escaped from the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2001, is among the first asylum seekers to be caught by tough new immigration legislation introduced late last year.
In a letter which mistakenly suggests that she is from Somalia rather than the DRC, the national asylum support service (Nass) orders her to leave her council house in Bolton, Greater Manchester, on Friday when it will stop paying rent to the local council.
Other cash benefits will also be withdrawn, leaving her destitute and homeless. Bolton council could be forced to take five of her children - including a seven-month-old baby - into care. But it would have no legal responsibility to help Ms Lusukumu, now on medication for depression, or her 18-year-old daughter Flores.
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