Archive for category: ANNOUNCEMENTS

Non-Governmental Organisations claimed that 70 migrants jumped into Mediterranean waters to avoid the Libyan coastguard’s gunshots.

According to NGOs, coastguard officers opened fire on two boats loaded with migrants at a time when the organisations were having a rescue operation. The Libyan coastguard, on the other hand, dismissed the accusations and demanded evidence of them.

Eyewitnesses told Al Jazeera that while four NGOs, including SOS Mediterranee, MSF, Save the Children and German NGO Jugend Rettet, were trying to save refugees, a speedboat equipped with four machine guns reached the point.

According to the testimonies, the speedboat approached the ships of the immigrants at great speed, creating large waves that made it difficult for refugees to board on the plastic boats. “A little later a series of shots were heard. The shootings were heard very close to the immigrants’ boats, told Laura Garel, a communications officer of “SOS Mediterranee Aquarius”, to Al-Jazeera.

The crew can not say for sure whether they were victims or injured, but NGOs claim they were victims and injured and that two coastguard officers stole mobile phones and money from passengers.

The Libyan coastguard denied that the incident occurred, calling the accusations “absurd.”

The elderly refugees who want to reunite with their families remain marooned in Greece, as “unnecessary delays” do not allow them to reunite their family members in the European Union, as stated in a recent report by the Human Rights Watch.

Family reunification often focuses on minors and their parents, but hundreds of older people are waiting to see if they will be allowed to reunite with adult family members in another European country. Indeed, many testimonies of over 60-year-old people are reporting that they are not allowed to travel to the country where their grandchildren are.

Although EU legislation provides for family reunification for older people, “the lack of clarity or explicit provisions on the process mean that these people can remain in uncertainty, away from their families for long periods of time,” notes the organisation.

The British Interior Ministry’s quick review of the decision to ban refugees living in the base of Dhekelia’s base in Britain was last Thursday ordered by the Court of Appeals of the country.

The decision concerns six families from Iraq, Sudan, Ethiopia and Syria, whose members were among 75 people who rescued on the coasts of Cyprus in October 1998 while on a fishing boat heading for Italy.

Since then, families live in facilities within the British Dhekelia base. According to their advocates, the British government refused for 18 years to recognise their rights as refugees.

Their request for an establishment in the UK was rejected in November 2014 by the then Home Secretary and current British Prime Minister Teresa Mei, on the grounds that they had no ties to the country and that they could seek asylum and relocate to another area in Cyprus.

As the Dhekelia bases are military bases, they are not designed for permanent residence and therefore refugees have limited access to services such as education and health care. Also, their rights were limited and they were unable to travel.

UNHCR welcomed the ruling of the UK Court of Appeal and stressed the need for a sustainable solution for refugees.

Nearly 80 migrants rescued off the coast of Libya after staying for two days in the Mediterranean sea, while seven people lost their lives.

The 77 immigrants, including one woman and one child, rescued last Thursday in the open city of Zawiya, in western Libya, as reported by sources from the Libyan coastguard and officials of the International Migration Organization.

According to the survivors who stayed in the sea for two days, the boat sank because it was overloaded. Some of the survivors have burn marks because they have stayed in the sea under the sun for many hours. Refugees were taken back to Libya where they provided with first aid.

Plastic and wooden boats carrying about 2,300 migrants were found in international waters between Libya and Italy, as the Italian coastguard reports. Since the beginning of the year, about 50,000 people have been able to reach Italy. Nearly 6,350 were rescued but were taken back to Libya, from where they had left, while more than 1,440 were drowned. Only last week 34 people died, including many young children.

With an extreme anti-immigration rhetoric, Teresa Mei pledged, ahead of the June 8th elections, to reduce the number of immigrants in the UK to below 100,000, thanks to the agreement she would have with the European Union.

Two of the ways in which she will achieve this purpose is to further tax UK businesses that hire non-UK workers with £ 2,000 (about € 2,300) per year for each and to increase their own healthcare payments for the national health system.

All this is included in the presidential election program of the Conservatives, presented by the party leader and prime minister. Immigrants today in the UK are estimated at 273,000 while they have never been under 100,000 in the past twenty years.

Special mention is made of foreign students, who will count as migrants. The Conservatives have pledged to tighten the conditions for studying “in order to maintain the high standards” of British universities, and after completing their studies they will have to leave the country unless they meet new, stricter conditions that will allow them to work in the UK.