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May 16, 2019 News

They Tried to Reach Europe and Were Turned Back. Now They're Trapped in Libya's Crossfires

“Please try to help us to be evacuated from this critical situation,” the message popped up on my mobile phone. In struggling English, the plea continued: “Our is full of suffering such as starvation, frightened sound of weapons, working as…

A detainee stands outside a toilet stall in the Ain Zara detention center, Tripoli, July 5, 2018.

September 17, 2018 News

About the Mediterranean, Start with Saving Lives

Following his meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel last week, French President Emmanuel Macron tweeted that he wanted “to make the Mediterranean a chance and not a fear.” But does he mean Europeans’ fears of foreigners,…

Migrants are seen onboard the charity ship Lifeline at Boiler Wharf in Senglea, in Valletta's Grand Harbour, Malta June 27, 2018.

June 11, 2018 News

Italy’s Dangerous Direction on Migration

After almost three months of jumping up and down in place, the newly invested Italian interior minister, Matteo Salvini, has hit the ground running in the worst possible direction. The head of the anti-immigrant party, the League, Salvini has…

Italy's Interior Minister Matteo Salvini arrives at the Republic Day military parade in Rome, Italy, June 2, 2018.

April 23, 2018 News

Proactiva’s Release Does Not Spell End of Italy’s War on Rescue Groups

Italian judge’s releases rescue ship but upholds legal fiction of Libyan search and rescue zone. Judith Sunderland from Human Rights Watch explains why the contradiction matters.

WE MAY NEED to curb our enthusiasm over an Italian judge’s April 16 decision to release the rescue ship Open Arms, operated by the Spanish group Proactiva, which Italy impounded a month ago. Although the Open Arms may soon sail again and…

A rigid hulled inflatable boat (RHIB) approaches the MV Open Arms, the search and rescue ship of Proactiva Open Arms, in the central Mediterranean off the coast of Libya, December 16, 2017

February 27, 2018 News

Xenophobia in Italy’s Election Campaign

Italian politics are never boring, and election campaigns are always times of particularly strident debate. But the tenor of the campaign leading up to Italy’s national elections on March 4 on immigration issues is profoundly alarming. In…

Demonstrators stand on a balcony during an anti-racism rally in Macerata, Italy, February 10, 2018. REUTERS/Yara Nardi

February 27, 2017 News

The UN Should Just Say No to Returning Refugees to Danger

Pressure is building on Afghan and Somali refugees to go home, even if they no longer have homes to return to. It is not surprising that this pressure is coming from governments that have been hosting huge numbers of refugees and want…

Member of Greek Red Cross helps an Afghan refugee who has just arrived from Turkey with an inflatable boat in the area of airport of Mytilene, Lesvos Island, Greece.

December 9, 2016 News

Relocation: Belgium lags behind European solidarity with asylum seekers

Just over a year after a European plan to distribute up to 160,000 asylum seekers stranded in first countries of arrival in the European Union (EU) to other European countries, the record shows insufficient progress. Not only was the initial…

November 7, 2016 News

Why Cooperating with Libya On Migration Could Damage the EU’s Standing

The EU and Italy have a hidden agenda in training Libyan naval forces to intercept smugglers. Italy and the Netherlands began training Libyan coast guard and navy officers on Italian and Dutch navy ships in the Mediterranean …

Migrants on a boat that they tried to take to Italy, after being detained at a Libyan Navy base in Tripoli on September 20, 2015.

September 13, 2016 News

Kenya Is Abandoning Somali Refugees

After 25 years of vicious conflict that has cost countless lives and displaced millions of people, peace has finally broken out in south-central Somalia — at least that's what Kenya says. And the UN refugee agency, the United Nations High Commission for…

A newly arrived Somali refugee is forced out of the queue outside a reception centre in the Ifo 2 refugee camp in Dadaab, near the Kenya-Somalia border, in Garissa County, Kenya

September 1, 2016 News

Somali Refugees Left in Kenya's Dadaab Face Dangerous Choices

Hot, dusty wind has constantly passed through the thatch and thorn of Kenya’s Dadaab refugee camps since they opened in the early 1990s. In May, however, a new wind created a chill among the estimated 340,000 mostly Somali refugees living here…

Somali refugees look through a barbed wire fence in Dadaab in 2013.

June 11, 2016 News

Somali Domestic Workers at Risk as Ramadan Departures Dawn

Under a new agreement Somalia is sending between 600 and 1,000 domestic workers to Saudi Arabia in time for Ramadan. The month of fasting usually brings an increase in the demand for domestic workers as employers often host large iftar meals to break…

July 28, 2015 News

Why do People Risk Their Lives to Cross the Mediterranean?

Questions and Answers

The European Union (EU) is facing unprecedented numbers of refugees and migrants arriving by boat. In 2014, 220,000 people arrived, almost double the combined total of 121,000 from 2011 through 2013. During just the first six…

Un buque de la Armada irlandesa Le Eithne, participa en una operación de rescate como parte del operativo Frontex Tritón, el 6 de junio de 2015

April 29, 2015 News

Brussels’ Personae Non Gratae

The EU is responsible for correcting the irrational, irresponsible debate about migration to Europe. So far, it’s failed.

Imagine the Hollywood blockbuster about one boat’s perilous journey in the Mediterranean. The Eritrean mother with her five-year-old son, the 16-year-old Afghan boy traveling on his own, and the Syrian patriarch with his entire family — they would be the…

February 25, 2015 News

The EU Stands By as Thousands of Migrants Drown in the Mediterranean

On the Mediterranean island of Lampedusa stands a graveyard filled with simple wooden crosses. We don’t know the names and stories of those buried there, except that they perished at sea trying to reach Europe, fleeing conflict in Syria, human-rights…

February 20, 2015 News

How Many More Must Die at Sea before Europe Acts?

“Aman.” a 29-year-old Eritrean, had just described his arduous journey to Europe when I heard the news about hundreds of deaths in the Mediterranean. He, like many others I spoke with last week in Dresden, risked their lives last summer crossing from war-…

September 17, 2014 News

The EU Must Take More Responsibility for the Migrants Risking Their Lives to Reach Italy

Calls for Europe to Help Fund Mare Nostrum Have Been Largely Ignored

The Italian Navy’s twitter feed contained joyous news last week: a pregnant mother among the 90 people rescued from the sea by a Navy frigate had given birth on board to a little girl, Yambambi. Over that weekend more than 1,600 people were rescued. While…

July 17, 2014 News

Reversal of last year’s court ruling on urban refugees in Kenya is quite stunning

What changed?

The judge who told the Kenya Government a year ago that it couldn’t force urban refugees into remote and over-crowded refugee camps now says it’s fine to do just that. How could that be? In July 2013, the High Court ruled unconstitutional a government…

July 8, 2014 News

Refugees Shouldn't Be Italy's Burden Alone

Absorbing Migrants Crossing the Mediterranean Would Be Manageable if the Costs Were Spread Across the EU

An Italian naval vessel made a grim discovery in the Mediterranean Sea last month. Alerted that a 20-meter fishing vessel was in distress, the crew located and began evacuating the 600 or so migrants on board. The Italian navy captain told the BBC that…

May 15, 2014 News

Europe’s Spectacle of Compassion for Migrants

My twitter feed on Monday was full of the latest tragedy in the Mediterranean. At least 17 people died when an overcrowded boat sank on the crossing from Libya to Italy, with many more still unaccounted for. We don’t know their names or their stories.…

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