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Earlier this month, hundreds of asylum seekers protested against conditions at the Moria refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos after a woman was killed in a fire there. The fire was the third fatal incident in the camp in the last two months. An unaccompanied minor was stabbed to death in a fight there in August and a five-year-old boy was accidentally run over by a truck while playing outside the camp in September.

These incidents, however devastating they may be, did not come as a surprise to anyone who is vaguely familiar with the conditions in the camp. Moria has, for all intents and purposes, become a death trap for the thousands of desperate refugees who are currently being forced to live there.

In 2016, the EU signed a controversial refugee deal with Turkey, known as the EU-Turkey Statement , to stop the refugee flow from Turkey's western coast to Greece. Under the agreement, Ankara agreed to take back all refugees and migrants who cross to Greece from its territories in return for aid money and the relocation of some Syrian refugees from Turkey to Europe. As part of the deal, Greece agreed to its islands being used as "holding areas" to stop new arrivals from reaching mainland Europe, on the condition that most of the people held there would be swiftly returned to Turkey.

The plan for the containment of refugees on the Greek islands relied heavily on five "hot spots", including Moria, where asylum seekers would be registered and provided with temporary shelter.

On paper, the plan seemed promising. Turkey was going to curb the deadly sea crossings and Greece was going to temporarily house on its islands the few who manage to escape Turkey's nets. In the end, all but the most vulnerable refugees were going to end up in Turkey.

In reality, however, things did not work out that way. While Turkey initially succeeded in stopping a high percentage of refugees from embarking on a dangerous journey across the Aegean Sea, this did not last long. As the relations between Ankara and Brussels took a downturn, the refugee flows to Greece began to increase again. Moreover, Greek authorities proved inefficient in processing asylum applications and Turkey kept stalling over the readmissions. As a result, the population in Moria and the other Greek "hot spot" refugee camps started to increase rapidly.

Consequently, just three and a half years after the signing of the refugee deal, these camps have become symbols of Europe's failure to protect those who knocked on its door for help. These camps, with Moria chief among them, are now places where already traumatised people are stripped off their dignity.

Moria is within a former military base surrounded by olive groves. The beauty and tranquillity of the tree-lined road that leads up to the camp stands in stark contrast to its barbed wire and cement walls. The camp itself is a sea of run-down tents spiralling across small hills. A small road separates the main camp area from its unofficial annex, known as the "olive grove", where even more tents are lined up.

More than 14,000 people are currently living in Moria, even though the camp was originally designed to host about 3,000. The official site includes a holding area for those who are in the process of being sent back, there is a safe zone for unaccompanied minors and then there is the site where people "live". While the conditions in the main camp are grim, things are much worse in the "olive grove". There, it is possible to find families of 10 living in a single cloth tent placed on a makeshift wooden floor.

It is a dangerous, overcrowded, depressing labyrinth that slowly suffocates its inhabitants. Most of the thousands of refugees who are "trapped" there have no idea when they will be able to leave or where they will be going next. The hope many of them had when they made it to the Greek shores in tiny dinghies appears to have been replaced with feelings of desolation.

Doctors without Borders calls Moria a place of medical and psychological emergency . Refugees have described their time there as a "psychological war".

Many of the camp's residents suffer from some form of PTSD. Some are suicidal. Children are suffering from what psychologists call "resignation syndrome", a rare psychiatric condition that presents as progressive social withdrawal and reluctance to engage in normal activities, such as school and play, in response to an intolerable reality. The most severe cases can result in a state of hibernation and even death. Mental health specialists working in the camp say they came across children as young as two who appear to have suicidal thoughts. They may be too young to understand the meaning of life or death, but they know that they do not want to continue living in their current conditions. Some older children in the camp self harm.

Many believe refugees in Moria are better off than thousands of others stuck in conflict-ridden border areas without papers. The conditions in the camps may not be ideal, they reason, but the refugees are safe there.

But while they may be safe from mortars and missiles, they are still living with violence.

Violence can take many forms - psychological as well as physical. Camps like Moria perpetrate a form of violence that is largely invisible. But it is severe. And the pain refugees feel in this camp is no less real because they are feeling it in the "safety" of Europe.



The authorities should view the recent protests in Moria as a warning sign. The EU must act quickly to improve conditions there; to give people back their dignity and their hope. Because when people have nothing left to lose, violence often follows - against themselves and others. 


Autore: Marianna Karakoulaki
Fonte: AlJazeera

The invisible violence of Europe's refugee camps

Earlier this month, hundreds of asylum seekers protested against conditions at the Moria refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos after ...
The European Union, Norway and Switzerland received nearly 66,000 asylum applications from unaccompanied minor migrants in 2016, a decline of nearly 40% from 2015’s record total but still well above the total of prior years, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of data from Eurostat, the EU’s statistical agency.

From 2008 to 2016, the EU, Norway and Switzerland received some 274,000 total asylum applications from unaccompanied minors, or those younger than 18 applying without a parent or guardian. (Data are not available before 2008.) The annual number of unaccompanied minor applications remained relatively flat from 2008 to 2013 before nearly doubling to 25,000 in 2014. During the refugee surge in 2015, European countries received more than 104,000 applications from unaccompanied minors seeking asylum. Counting all age groups, the EU, Norway and Switzerland received more than 4.8 million first-time asylum applications from 2008 to 2016, with unaccompanied minors representing almost 6% of the total.


The asylum application data in this analysis do not represent the total number of refugees who move to Europe in a given year. Applications may not equal the number of applicants because some people may apply in multiple countries. Some asylum seekers also may arrive in a year prior to when they file their application. In addition, many are not successfully granted refugee status and are not allowed to remain in Europe.

As in previous years, most unaccompanied minors who sought asylum in Europe in 2016 were older teenage males. In 2016, three-fifths of the applications by unaccompanied minors (62%) were from males ages 16 or 17, substantially higher than the 53% of the applications for the combined years of 2008 through 2015.

Eurostat reports the age of unaccompanied minors as determined by the country receiving the application, not necessarily what is reported by the applicant. Some officials have said some of these teenagers may actually be adults claiming to be a younger age to qualify for benefits for unaccompanied minors. In Sweden, the government has introduced biological tests such as dental exams to determine the age of those applying for asylum as unaccompanied minors.

In 2016, Afghanistan was the most common origin country for unaccompanied minors seeking asylum in the EU, Norway and Switzerland, with about 24,000 applications. The other top origins were Syria (about 12,000), Iraq (more than 4,000), Eritrea (between 3,000 and 4,000) and Somalia (about 3,000). From 2008 to 2016, Afghanistan accounted for more than 100,000 European asylum applications from unaccompanied minors, making it the single largest country of origin.

Germany received the most applications for asylum from unaccompanied minors in 2016, with nearly 36,000 (55% of all such applications received by the EU, Norway and Switzerland). Italy was second with more than 6,000.

The top receiving countries of unaccompanied minor asylum applications have changed over the years. Sweden, for example, accounted for about 3% of European unaccompanied minor applications in 2016, down from 34% in 2015. Meanwhile, the United Kingdom received just 5% of unaccompanied minor applications in 2016, down from 32% in 2008.

Statistics on the success rates of asylum applications by unaccompanied minors are not available from Eurostat. But among all asylum seekers to Europe, some of the highest success rates in 2016 were among Syrians, Afghans and Iraqis. By contrast, asylum seekers from the non-EU countries of Albania, Serbia and Kosovo have considerably lower success rates. In response to concerns about child migrants, the EU Commission recently encouraged member states to seek stronger protections for child migrants, particularly for unaccompanied minors. 

Autore: Phillip Connor

Asylum applications from unaccompanied minors fell sharply in Europe in 2016

The European Union, Norway and Switzerland received nearly 66,000 asylum applications from unaccompanied minor migrants in 2016, a declin...
Unaccompanied teenagers from Afghanistan, Yemen and Eritrea who had reached the Calais refugee camp will be barred from entering the UK according to Home Office guidelines.
In a decision that was condemned by refugee charities and campaigners, the move will limit the intake of teenagers who do not have family in the UK to those from Syria and Sudan except in exceptional circumstances.
The Home Office’s guidance said it would take children 12 or under of all nationalities, those deemed at high risk of sexual exploitation, and those who “are aged 15 or under and are of Sudanese or Syrian nationality” because people from those countries are already granted asylum in the UK in 75% of cases.
Lady Sheehan, the Liberal Democrat peer, said the new rules, details of which emerged on Tuesday night, were “unacceptable”. Sheehan said they would come as a “horrible shock” to refugees from other countries who had been led to believe they might be able to come to Britain. “It is quite arbitrary. We had no idea they were going to apply this sort of criteria,” she said. Sheehan said she feared that teenagers awaiting asylum decisions in reception centres across France would now escape and return to Calais to risk their lives jumping on lorries. “People will be just devastated,” she said in relation to some of the refugees she has campaigned for in Calais.
Rabbi Janet Darley, the leader of Citizens UK, accused the government of back-tracking on its promises. “The UK is unforgivably backtracking on its commitment to vulnerable refugee children in Europe. Citizens UK’s safe passage team estimates that around 40% of the children who were in Calais at the time of the demolition are Eritrean or Afghan,” said Darley.
“By ruling out children from these countries, the home secretary is arbitrarily preventing many vulnerable children from being helped by the Dubs amendment, and will make it impossible for her to keep her promise that the UK would take half of the unaccompanied children in Calais.”
The new guidelines were issued to Home Office staff on 8 November and have been seen by the Guardian after they were shared on Tuesday with charities which have worked in the Calais migrant camp. They follow claims by some tabloid newspapers that some of the youngsters coming to the UK were over 18. The Calais camp was demolished two weeks ago, with an estimated 2,000 children and young adults of 16, 17 and 18 years old now scattered across France in reception centres while their cases are examined by French and Home Office officials. The UK has so far taken about 330 children from the Calais camp.
Unaccompanied children who have a family member in the UK are currently allowed in as part of a “fast transfer” family reunification programme, mandated by EU lawe.
The remainder have no family in the UK, but qualify for entry under an amendment to immigration laws pushed through parliament by Lord Dubs earlier this year. 
Citizens UK also said that the Home Office process of transferring children to the UK has virtually ground to a halt. A group of girls aged between 15 and 17 arrived in Scotland under the Dubs amendment at the weekend, but the charity has not been made aware of any others in the past week.
Of the unaccompanied minors who have been brought to the UK from France so far this year, about 250 are part of the “fast transfer” family reunification programme.
The chaotic clearance of the Calais migrant camp caused bitter tensions between the French and British governments, with France’s president telling the UK it had to do its “moral duty” and take 1,000 children from the camp.
The Home Office said that “all children who have close family in the UK will be considered for transfer” and those that do not have family ties would be assessed according to the new guidance. Fonte  - Lisa O'Carrol - TheGuardian

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Migrant teenagers without family in UK barred except Syrians and Sudanese

Unaccompanied teenagers from Afghanistan, Yemen and Eritrea who had reached the Calais refugee camp will be barred from entering the UK a...
In 2015 an estimated 1,011,712 refugees and migrants crossed the Mediterranean to Europe in search of safety and a better life. The MEDMIG final report examines in detail the dynamics of this migration and ways forward for policy.
Politicians and policymakers across Europe have largely talked about the arrival of refugees and migrants in 2015 as an unprecedented ‘event’, a single coherent flow of people that came ‘from nowhere’, suddenly and unexpectedly pressing against the continent’s southern border.
There has been little or no interest in the ‘back stories’ of those arriving; instead the gap between someone leaving their home country and his or her or arrival in Europe has been filled with generalisations and assumptions. We are now several years into the ‘crisis’ and there is still no sign of a coherent long-term response.
Understanding the dynamics of migration to Europe and why some people might decide to risk their lives crossing the Mediterranean remains a pressing concern.
The total number of people recorded as dead or missing in the Mediterranean in 2016 is higher than the total for 2015. Since the beginning of 2016 the rates of death have increased from 1 in 54 to 1 in 46 people among those crossing via the Central Mediterranean route and from 1 death in every 1,063 arrivals to 1 death in every 409 arrivals via the Eastern Mediterranean route.
Both the reception infrastructure and the asylum system in Greece have failed to adapt to the needs of the refugees and migrants. This is partly a Greek failure but it is also a failure of the EU. Meanwhile escalating conflicts in Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan and Iraq continue to displace hundreds of thousands of people from their homes every day.
And the assault on Mosul (Iraq) which began in mid-October 2016 is expected to displace 1.5 million people, many of whom are likely to cross the border into Eastern Turkey just a few hours away.
Our final report shines new light on the dynamics of migration to Europe across the Mediterranean Sea drawing on a rich dataset from the first large-scale, systematic and comparative study of the backgrounds, experiences, routes and aspirations of refugees and migrants in three EU Member States – Italy, Greece and Malta – and Turkey.
Fonte http://www.medmig.info/research-brief-destination-europe/

The report is available to download here





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Destination Europe?

In 2015 an estimated 1,011,712 refugees and migrants crossed the Mediterranean to Europe in search of safety and a better life. The MEDMI...
A centre for young refugees in Saint-Omer offers shelter and protection, as well as the chance to enjoy being children again.

On a cloudy day in the northern French town of Saint-Omer, Ibrahim, from Darfur in Sudan, is tending to a crop of vegetables with eight other young teenagers.

Ranging from 14 to 17 years in age, they are among the lucky few who have been given a place at Saint-Omer’s Maison du Jeune Réfugié (‘house for young refugees’), run by the NGO France Terre d’Asile.

Forty-five children live at the centre, one of the few places that provide accommodation and protection for unaccompanied children who had been living in the makeshift camp known as ‘the jungle’ near Calais, 45 kilometres away. Here, they find shelter and protection, and can enjoy being children again – unlike in the jungle, where children sleep outside in makeshift shelters and are at risk of violence and abuse. Many have already faced danger while transiting along insecure routes through several countries in Europe.

Gardening is one of the leisure activities organized by the centre and is popular with residents. The children plant, tend and harvest lettuces, courgettes, thyme, tomatoes, basil and rhubarb.

Germaine Tetou, a social worker in Saint-Omer, is teaching them the French names for the vegetables and gardening tools. They repeat them, joking and laughing at one another’s pronunciation.

Tetou, who herself came to France as a refugee from Benin, says the children learned quickly. “Every day I am grateful to have this job,” she says. “I understand what they have to go through.” Gardening reminds Ibrahim*, who is 14, of his grandmother’s farm in Darfur. “I like everything here in Saint-Omer, but especially gardening,” he says.

He has been in France for 42 days, including the 15 he spent in ‘the jungle’, where he slept in a makeshift shelter with other teenagers who had fled Darfur, like him, without their parents.

“France has an obligation to protect unaccompanied minors living in the so-called jungle in Calais,” says Ralf Gruenert, the representative in France for UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency.

“And that means first and foremost to find appropriate housing solutions and provide them with legal, social and health care, but also to establish a workable and speedy system for family reunification for unaccompanied minors who have families in other European countries, including the United Kingdom, where such a move is in their best interests.”

Activities at the centre include French classes, maths, music, arts, sports, cinema and gardening. There is also a library.

Manal*, 16, from Sudan, looks at photos of castles in the south of France after lunch. “It’s beautiful, where is it?” he asks. He wants to find the location on a map to see if it is possible to visit them.

In the afternoon, some of the residents will head to the cinema, where ‘Ghostbusters’ and ‘Star Trek Beyond’ are their top choices. Afterwards they plan to play football in the park.

They feel safe at the centre, where they are able to dream as children do once more.

Jamal*, 17, from Ghazni in Afghanistan, also lives at the Saint-Omer centre. He arrived in Calais alone after he fled home.

He says he feels comfortable in Saint-Omer and dreams of becoming an electronic engineer. “There is no fighting here like in the jungle. I like everything here but my favourite activity is learning French.”

Accommodation centres and places for children are limited. Most of the unaccompanied children living in Calais do not have the same opportunities as Jamal and Ibrahim.

“Every day we receive requests to receive more children, but we are obliged to refuse as the centre is permanently full,” says the director, Jean-Francois Roger. “More places have to be created. Minors need to be in a safe environment.”

According to NGOs, about 850 unaccompanied children live in the Calais ‘jungle.’

As an emergency measure, 215 minors are accommodated in a temporary reception camp (Le Centre d’Accueil Provisoire, known by the French acronym CAP) and the Jules Ferry centre for women and children, which are run by the organization La Vie Active. Both are full and cannot accommodate more. The other children live in tents and makeshift shelters in the ‘jungle.’

So far this year, of the 300,000 refugees and migrants who have reached Europe, 28 per cent are children and many are travelling alone. In Italy, 15 per cent of the arrivals since the beginning of the year are unaccompanied children.

In 2015, children comprised more than half the global refugee population of 21.3 million, with the number of unaccompanied and separated children on the move also growing dramatically.

Nearly 100,000 asylum applications were made by unaccompanied and separated children in 78 countries in 2015 alone. This was the highest number on record since UNHCR started collecting such data in 2006.

Tensions in Calais have risen over the past few weeks, with French demonstrators blocking access to the Channel Tunnel and the Calais ferry to support calls for the closure of the ‘jungle.’

No matter what, as winter approaches, suitable accommodation for unaccompanied children like Jamal, Ibrahim and Manal is urgently needed.

*Names have been changed for protection 

Céline Schmitt 

Unaccompanied minors in Calais cultivate a world away from home

A centre for young refugees in Saint-Omer offers shelter and protection, as well as the chance to enjoy being children again. On a cloudy ...


Children now make up more than half of the world’s refugees, according to a Unicef report, despite the fact they account for less than a third of the global population.

Just two countries – Syria and Afghanistan – comprise half of all child refugees under protection by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), while roughly three-quarters of the world’s child refugees come from just 10 countries.New and on-going global conflicts over the last five years have forced the number of child refugees to jump by 75% to 8 million, the report warns, putting these children at high risk of human smuggling, trafficking and other forms of abuse.

The Unicef report (pdf) – which pulls together the latest global data regarding migration and analyses the effect it has on children – shows that globally some 50 million children have either migrated to another country or been forcibly displaced internally; of these, 28 million have been forced to flee by conflict. It also calls on the international community for urgent action to protect child migrants; end detention for children seeking refugee status or migrating; keep families together; and provide much-needed education and health services for children migrants.


“Though many communities and people around the world have welcomed refugee and migrant children, xenophobia, discrimination, and exclusion pose serious threats to their lives and futures,” said Unicef’s executive director, Anthony Lake.

“But if young refugees are accepted and protected today, if they have the chance to learn and grow, and to develop their potential, they can be a source of stability and economic progress.”

Today children comprise one-eighth of all international migrants in the world (31 million children out of 244 million total migrants), according to 2015 data. The vast majority of child migrants – some 3.7 million children – live in the US, followed by Saudi Arabia and Jordan, while in Europe, the UK hosts the largest number of migrants under the age of 18 (close to 750,000).




Unicef UK is calling on the UK government to step up action to ensure that refugee children stranded in Europe can reach safety with their families in the UK.

“Today, nearly one in every 200 children in the world is a refugee,” said Lily Caprani, Unicef UK’s deputy executive director. “In the last few years we have seen huge numbers of children being forced to flee their homes, and takedangerous, desperate journeys, often on their own. Children on the move are at risk of the worst forms of abuse and harm and can easily fall victim to traffickers and other criminals.

“Many of these children wouldn’t resort to such extreme measures if the UK government made them aware that they may have a legal right to come to the UK safely, and if they provided the resources to make that process happen before these terrible journeys begin.”

The vast majority of the world’s child migrants live in Asia or Africa, the report says. Asia is the birthplace of nearly half (43%) of all the migrants in the world, with nearly 60% of these migrants moving within the region. Most of Asia’s child migrants are hosted in Saudi Arabia, which also receives the highest number of labour migrants – the report’s authors say more research is needed to understand the connection between the two.


Globally, Turkey has the largest share of refugees – including adults – under protection by the UNHCR, and is believed to host the most child refugees as well.

In Africa, nearly one in three migrants is a child – nearly twice the global average – and three in five refugees are children. African migrants move both within and beyond the continent’s borders in nearly equal numbers; South Africa and Ivory Coast are the top two host countries for immigrants. But on-going conflict in many countries, in addition to linguistic difficulties between peoples and extremely limited resources to deal with migrant and refugee populations, mean that “the economic and social pressures of hosting threaten to uproot refugees once more”, the report warns.Understanding how and why children move within or beyond their birth countries is hugely important but usually hidden from view, says Dale Rutstein of Unicef’s Office of Research – Innocenti, which is investigating the multiple drivers that push children to start new lives, and the problems that they face as a result.

“The systems we have in place for people fleeing or seeking asylum are focused on adults, and in no way are articulated for children,” he says. “They are usually based on border control and law enforcement, yet we know that detention for a child is the worst thing that can happen and can create significant problems [for] a child’s development. But time and time again, we see that states don’t have any system for [holding] children apart from [putting them in] detention.”

Data clearly shows that refugee and migrant children disproportionately face poverty and exclusion despite being in great need of aid and resources, and in many circumstances are required to handle their own legal cases as they lack any form of legal representation.“In many parts of the world, children are often and regularly in court proceedings where they have no legal representative and no adult representation, most notably on the border between Central America and the US,” says Rutstein.

“Think of how absurd it is for a child to be arguing their case against a government-appointed lawyer. Often states believe they are set up to protect ‘their own’ children, but children have to be children anywhere and everywhere, and need to have the same standard forms of protection and treatment [around the world].”

The report calls on the international community to fulfil the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the most widely ratified human rights treaty in history, which obliges ratifying countries to respect and protect the rights of all children within their territories, regardless of a child’s background or migration status. While legal frameworks protecting refugees and other adult migrants is unclear and fragmented, the report says, the children’s convention is clear and unequivocal, taking into account minors’ particular vulnerabilities.

SCARICA IL REPORT http://www.unicef.org.uk/Documents/Media/UPROOTED%20Report.pdf

Fonte: The Guardian
Autore: Kate Hodal


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Nearly half of all refugees are children, says Unicef

Children now make up more than half of the world’s refugees, according to a Unicef report, despite the fact they account fo...
Conditions for unaccompanied child asylum seekers in Calais are worsening because of a shortage of safe accommodation, according to a report.
The Refugee Youth Service (RYS), a key child protection agency in the Calais camp, has produced a report called Nowhere To Go that documents the deteriorating situation and disturbing lack of support for some of the mostvulnerable residents of the camp. The report also warns that deteriorating conditions mean that hundreds of children are at risk of disappearing.
The report is published as senior councillors from the Local Government Association prepare to visit the Calais camp on Thursday to consider how local government in France and the UK can work together to keep unaccompanied children safe and ensure they receive the care and support they need.
The report analyses the current scarce accommodation for children in the camp and in surrounding areas and calls for more accommodation to be provided as a matter of urgency. The report warns that unless safe areas are provided as soon as possible many of the estimated 608 unaccompanied children will disappear.


The report states: “The complete lack of child protection measures or any form of safeguarding in other informal camps or on the road to their next destination highlights the danger these young people are forced to put themselves in due to lack of feasible options.
“If something is not done in the immediate future we are at risk of repeating the catastrophic mistakes of the past.”
The report examines three on-site and three off-site centres around Calais that should be providing support for unaccompanied children but, for various reasons, are providing little or none. One, the Jules Ferry Unaccompanied Minors Accommodation Centre, is supposed to accommodate 72 unaccompanied children on the site but has not yet been built.
Approximately 183 children are living in a container camp known as Le Cap. While this provides a safer option for children than taking their chances in the ramshackle huts and tents on the site it is operating at capacity and has no space to accommodate more children.
RYS has called on the French government to provide safe accommodation for the hundreds of unaccompanied children and states that hundreds of children disappeared when the southern section of the camp was demolished in March. RYS tracked a number of these children to other parts of France and Europe.
The report highlights the cases of some individual children, including a 14-year-old boy who is self-harming, smoking hash and living between two tents and a caravan. He tried to claim asylum in France but was told he must wait in the camp until a space became available in an accommodation centre in Calais. He lost hope because of the delay and continued to make dangerous attempts to get to the UK each night instead. A 16-year-old boy arrived at the camp with nowhere to stay and was forced to move into a tent with strangers while waiting to be granted asylum in France.
A team of experienced therapists, including a group from the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust in London, are making regular visits to the camp. Known as the Calais Resilience Collective, they are working to enhance coping strategies of refugees, staff and volunteers, building on work carried out by the refugee team at the Tavistock.
A spokeswoman for the collective expressed alarm at the findings of the RYS report and said conditions for children were “very grim”.
Campaigners have criticised the UK government for not doing more to bring unaccompanied child refugees to the UK in line with Labour peer Alf Dub’ s amendment to the immigration act promising sanctuary. The Home Office said it was involved in active discussions to speed up mechanisms to identify, assess and transfer children to the UK. When the Guardian checked again the Home Office said there were no developments on these discussions to report.
The report follows a warning by Yvette Cooper, the Labour MP, that hundreds of child refugees have been unacceptably left in limbo in Calais camps by Home Office delays, despite having the legal right to be reunited with families in the UK.
Autore: Diane Taylor



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Conditions for unaccompanied children in Calais camp worsening, says report

Conditions for unaccompanied child asylum seekers in  Calais  are worsening because of a shortage of safe accommodation, according to a r...
Di seguito riportiamo  un interessantissimo articolo sulla situazione dei minori non accompagnati che provano ad attraversare la frontiera tra Messico e Stati Uniti d'America.Il reportage di seguito riportato è stato scritto dalla scrittrice Sonia Nazario, autrice del bellissimo libro Enrique's Journey: The True Story of a Boy Determined to Reunite With His Mother e pubblicato sul New York Times.

"Se un bambino sta fuggendo da un pericolo nel suo paese d'origine e bussa alla nostra porta, implorando aiuto, abbiamo il dovere di aprire la porta."

IN the past 15 months, at the request of President Obama, Mexico has carried out a ferocious crackdown on refugees fleeing violence in Central America. The United States has given Mexico tens of millions of dollars for the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30 to stop these migrants from reaching the United States border to claim asylum.

Essentially the United States has outsourced a refugee problem to Mexico that is similar to the refugee crisis now roiling Europe.

“The U.S. government is sponsoring the hunting of migrants in Mexico to prevent them from reaching the U.S.,” says Christopher Galeano, who spent last summer researching what’s happening in Mexico for human rights groups there. “It is forcing them to go back to El Salvador,Honduras, to their deaths.”

I went to Mexico last month to see the effects of the crackdown against migrants, who are being hunted down on a scale never seen before and sent back to countries where gangs and drug traffickers have taken control of whole sections of territory. More than a decade ago, I rode on top of seven freight trains up the length of Mexico with child migrants to chronicle hellish experiences at the hands of gangs, bandits and corrupt cops who preyed on youngsters as they journeyed north. Compared with today, that trip was child’s play.

In a migrant shelter in Ixtepec, Mexico, I met July Elizabeth Pérez, 32, who was clutching her 3-year-old daughter, Kimberly Julieth Medina, tight in her arms, and keeping a careful eye on her two other children, 6-year-old-Luis Danny Pérez and 12-year-old Naamá Pérez. She arrived at this shelter after fleeing San Pedro Sula, a city where she grew up and worked as a waitress but that is now the deadliest town in Honduras, a country with one of the highest homicide rates in the world.

She was aiming to reach the United States, where her mother and grandmother live legally in Florida — 3,000 miles away.

She got less than 300 miles inside Mexico’s southern border to the migrant shelter, and that took 20 terrifying days. Four times, Mexican state and federal police stopped buses she and her children were on. She cried. She bribed them. Other times, she and her three children got out of taxis or buses to walk around checkpoints.Photo

July Elizabeth Pérez with one of her daughters, 3-year old Kimberly Julieth Medina, and her only living son, 6-year-old Luis Danny Pérez, at the Hermanos en el Camino shelter in Ixtepec, Mexico. CreditKate Orlinsky for The New York Times

After walking 12 hours around a mountain, they waited, exhausted, for seven days until a freight train left. July hid in a cubbyhole at the end of a freight car with her children, but 15 minutes later some men stopped it and shot toward those aboard. “Sons of bitches, we are going to kill you!” they yelled at the migrants.

Some migrants on the train threw rocks at them; in the chaos, July and her children were able to escape. By the time they arrived at the shelter, she had spent $3,000 sent by her grandparents and mother in the United States on bribes and wildly inflated prices charged by buses and taxis to reach the shelter on July 23. Two days later, she applied for a humanitarian visa to get through Mexico to reach her mother in Miami. She has been waiting two months.


“I think Mexico is putting up as many obstacles as possible so you despair, give up, and leave,” she says.

The crackdown has changed the shelter, Hermanos en el Camino, like many church-run immigrant shelters in southern Mexico, from a place migrants stopped for a quick bite and respite to a refugee camp where migrants wait for months, desperately hoping to get a visa or asylum from Mexico that would allow them to stay or safely continue north.Photo

The shelter Hermanos en el Camino, which is used for sleeping at night and to escape the sun during the day, when people relax, play cards and hold church services on Sundays. CreditKatie Orlinsky for The New York Times

By day, some 150 migrants erect buildings to expand the shelter, chop firewood, clean, take care of one another’s children. At night, the dozens who cannot cram into overcrowded dormitories throw thin mattresses under the canopy of the huanacaxtle tree, in the dirt, in hammocks slung between branches. There’s a cacophany of snoring in the courtyard. A woman kidnapped by bandits in Mexico and raped in front of her husband sobs.

For eight years, July’s family has been struggling with the gang and narco-cartel violence that has overtaken many areas of her country. On Oct. 29, 2007, her brother, Carlos Luis Pérez, a skinny 22-year-old, was kidnapped and then found dead two days later in a sewage ditch, his hands and feet cut off. He had been on his way to deliver the family’s $91 in rent money when he was robbed.

In 2010, July’s mother left legally for the United States with a visa that her mother had obtained for her. When July’s mother arrived in the United States, she quickly applied for a visa for July, vowing, despite long backlogs for such visas, to get July out soon, too. “Hurry!” July begged, “I don’t want anything to happen to my children.” Matters grew worse in her city; there were three mass murders in the two blocks near her house as neighbors and friends were killed by the 18th Street gangsters who ruled her area.

Not long after her oldest son, Anthony Yalibath Pacheco, turned 14, he told July that 18th Street gangsters ordered him to be their lookout. “No,” he told them, “my mom will be mad at me.” Terrified that her son was in danger, she tried in 2014 to get any kind of visa from the United States Embassy; both her October and November applications were denied. She was told to wait for her mother’s visa to be processed, something that can take years.

On Dec. 4, 2014, at 7 p.m., she sent the 14-year-old and his friend on an errand just steps from home. When he didn’t return immediately, July called, then texted. Her son did not respond.Photo

July Elizabeth Pérez holds a photo of her son Anthony Yalibath Pacheco, who was killed in Honduras by gangs last year when he was 14 years old. CreditKatie Orlinsky for The New York Times

Desperate, she went to the police station, pleading for help even though she knew they were in collusion with the gang. They found her son’s bike at a house that reeked of marijuana, although no trace of the gangsters — tipped off, July believes, by the police. They found the boys’ bodies nearby moments later. Her son had ligature welts on his wrists, his face was beaten, ribs kicked, and burn marks singed his lips. His body had been stuffed into a garbage bag. Another bag over his head had suffocated him. Her son loved to help others, study math, and take care of his younger siblings, she says, and he longed to be a lawyer. “Why didn’t they leave him alive? Why? Why?” She sobs, tears streaming down her cheeks.


July quickly buried her son in a spot on top of the grave of her brother who had died, abandoned her house, and went to live three hours away. Seven months later, a neighbor tipped her off that the gang had found her. She left in less than 24 hours, carrying little. Speed was crucial; many migrants have fled Honduras only to be traced and killed in Guatemala by the same gang there. In her haste to leave her home she left behind her passport and photos of herself.


She decided her only safe alternative was to go to the United States illegally, but she made it only a few miles inside Mexico before she and her children were caught and detained in the 21st-Century Migration Station, Mexico’s largest immigration detention facility, in Tapachula, Chiapas. Despite Mexican laws that require all detained migrants to be notified of their right to apply for asylum, no one informed her of her rights. She begged to be considered a refugee. “I cannot go back to my country!”

The detention center was packed. Her children slept on filthy mattresses. Her 6-year-old son’s arms were covered in a rash and bleeding. July’s asthma left her barely able to breathe. She begged for medicine. Twelve days after being caught, she was deported to San Pedro Sula, where both her son and brother had been murdered. She immediately headed north again, fearing that if she didn’t leave, the 18th Street gang would find her.Photo

Siblings Luis Danny Pérez, 12-year old Naamá Pérez and Kimberly Julieth Medina, play cards with another child fleeing violence, Anthony Douglas Ponce Barahona, 3, in the shelter's women's dormitory. CreditKatie Orlinsky for The New York Times

Beginning in July 2014, Mexico redirected 300 to 600 immigration agents to its southernmost states, and conducted over 20,000 raids in 2014 on the freight trains migrants ride on top of, and the bus stations, hotels and highways where migrants travel. In a sharp departure from the past few years, in the first seven months of fiscal 2015, Mexico apprehended more Central Americans — 92,889 — than the 70,448 apprehended by the United States. This year, Mexico is expected to apprehend 70 percent more Central Americans than in 2014, while United States apprehensions are projected to be cut by about half, according to a Migration Policy Institute study last month.

Of course, barriers will not ultimately stop children who are increasingly desperate and can find new ways around obstacles. In a worrisome development for the White House that another surge could be brewing, last month more than twice as many unaccompanied children were caught coming into the United States illegally and put in federal custody than a year ago.

Mexico has been particularly zealous in beating back children traveling alone. In the first seven months of this year, Mexico had already apprehended 18,310 minors, up nearly a third over the same period a year ago.

But unaccompanied minors feel they have no choice but to flee. At the Ixtepec shelter, Brian Enoc Pérez Molina, 16, says there is nothing left for him to go back to — the local narco cartel, which trafficks cocaine and marijuana, killed his brother and father. He tried to go home once, to an island off Bluefields, Nicaragua, and the narcos nearly bludgeoned him to death, too.



No one systematically tracks how many deportees end up dead when they are returned to their homes, but the social scientist Elizabeth G. Kennedy in a forthcoming report documents, from news reports, that at least 90 migrants deported by the United States and Mexico in the past 21 months were murdered. The true number, she notes, is most likely much higher.Photo

Willmer Villatoro, 16, and his brother Alexis Villatoro, 18, at the Hermanos en el Camino shelter. They fled gangs in El Salvador after Willmer was shot for not joining them.CreditKatie Orlinsky for The New York TimesPhoto

Willmer Villatoro's scar from a gunshot wound inflicted by gangs in El Salvador.CreditKatie Orlinsky for The New York Times

Although President Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico said when he announced the so-called Southern Border Plan that it was to “protect the human rights of migrants as they pass through Mexico,” the opposite has happened. By the Mexican government’s own accounting, 72,000 migrants have been rescued from kidnappers in recent years. They are often tortured and held for ransom. The survivors tell of being enslaved working in marijuana fields or forced into prostitution. Many are killed — sometimes they have organs harvested — in what’s become an invisible, silent slaughter. The government push has been interpreted as open season on migrants who have become prey to an exploding number of criminals and the police who rob, rape, beat and kill them.

The crackdown has forced migrants to travel in ways that are harder, take longer, are more isolated and have fewer support mechanisms. New measures have made riding on top of freight trains north, a preferred method for anyone who cannot afford a $10,000 smuggler fee, incredibly difficult. In Tierra Blanca, Veracruz and elsewhere, tall concrete walls topped with concertina wire have been constructed to thwart migrants. In Apizaco, the Lechería train station outside Mexico City and elsewhere, chest-high concrete pillars, or rocks, have been installed on both sides of the tracks so migrants cannot run alongside moving trains and board them.

PhotoPeople head north in Chahuites, Mexico. It is one of the most dangerous areas along the southern migrant trail, where people are preyed on by criminals and fear officials monitoring the trains.CreditKatie Orlinsky for The New York Times

In Veracruz, low-hanging structures have been built that the trains pass through, so unsuspecting migrants atop freight cars are swept off moving trains. Mexican immigration officials are using tasers to zap people off moving freight trains, says Alberto Donis, operating coordinator of the Hermanos en el Camino shelter in Ixtepec.

Four in five of the migrants I spoke to at the Ixtepec shelter have walked most of the way, often with babies or toddlers in their arms.

“There are children walking the length of Mexico,” often at night so as not to be seen, says David Muñoz Ambriz, the Latin America communications manager for World Vision International, a Christian humanitarian aid group.

Migrants are also taking more clandestine, dangerous routes to go undetected, far from the dozens of mostly Catholic-run shelters that have sprung up next to the tracks to aid them. The Rev. Alejandro Solalinde, the priest who runs the Ixtepec shelter, has worked arduously to reduce abuses. He has been jailed by the police, threatened by narco traffickers, and lives with multiple bodyguards in daily fear for his life for denouncing barbaric crimes against migrants and complicity by Mexican law enforcers.Photo

A morning scene at the immigrant shelter in Chahuites, one of the most dangerous areas on the southern trail. CreditKatie Orlinsky for The New York Times

As Mexico has blocked refugees from moving forward, it places enormous obstacles in the way of being able to apply for asylum in Mexico. Those who are detained by migrant officials and are allowed to apply remain locked up during a process that can take months or a year, sometimes in jails where rats roam by day and worms infest the food migrants get. Of those who are able to hold out for a decision, only about 20 percent win — less than half of the roughly 50 percent asylum approval rate of the United States. Mexico granted asylum to 18 children last year.



“You can lock people inside a burning house, you can close the front door, but they will find a way out,” says Michelle Brané, director of the Migrant Rights and Justice program at the Women’s Refugee Commission. “The U.S. doesn’t want to recognize this as a refugee situation. They want Mexico to be the buffer, to stop arrivals before they get to our border.”

OTHER surrounding Latin American countries outside the so-called three conflicted Northern Triangle countries — El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala — have seen an almost 1,200 percent spike in asylum claims between 2008 and 2014, according to a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees study.Photo

A guide for migrants in Ixtepec issued by the National Institute of Migration (Instituto Nacional de Migración), a government organization that supervises immigrants. The pamphlet includes maps as well as safety and legal information.CreditKatie Orlinsky for The New York Times

While a legitimate debate can continue about the pluses and minuses of economic migrants to the United States, the solution with these refugees from our neighbors to the south is clear. It seems ridiculous to have to say it: If a child is fleeing danger in his or her home country, and that child knocks on our door pleading for help, we should open the door. Instead of funding only the current policies toward migrants in Mexico, we should fund fair efforts by Mexico to evaluate which Central Americans are refugees.

While migrants’ claims are evaluated, we should help Mexico pay for places for migrants to be held that are humane.

The United States should develop a system for these refugees, much like Europe is now doing for Syrians, to equitably allocate people who are fleeing harm throughout this continent — including sending them to safer countries in Latin America, to Canada and to the United States. In the 1980s, many United States churches stepped up to help Central Americans fleeing civil war violence, and many would gladly sponsor a migrant today if encouraged by our government.

Will the United States step up and be a moral leader for these refugees?

Sonia Nazario is the author of “Enrique’s Journey: The Story of a Boy’s Dangerous Odyssey to Reunite With His Mother.”

The Refugees at Our Door

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Human Trafficking in the Sinai: Refugees between Life and Death

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in English below
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in English below Il Refugee Council con il video Faisal’s Story Animation ha voluto sensibilizzare l'opinione pubblica sul fenomeno sc...

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English below

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English below Lo Yemen, a causa della gravissima crisi umanitaria del Corno d'Africa sta registrando un numero senza precedenti di ...
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