Worldcrunch
The U.S. is largely to blame for exploitative migration policy. But while Colombian President Gustavo Petro is upset that the United States is handcuffing the Colombians it deports, he and many other South American presidents are not as upset by the mistreatment that makes people leave their home countries in the first place.
Antonio, Ibrain, Victoria, Lizeth, Xiomara and Zaira. All six have etched in their memory the people they were able to help and those they couldn’t while crossing the Darién Gap, one of the most dangerous points on the Central American migration route to the United States.
The death of a 27-year-old hotel worker on the island of Kos, and the subsequent arrest of a suspect from Bangladesh, had set off a firestorm back in Poland that mixes anti-immigrant contempt with victim blaming. One year later, the storm hasn’t quieted down, as the investigation remains open.
Arrests of migrants, camp destruction operations and searches of NGO premises: since the end of April, the anti-migrant policy has taken on an unprecedented scale.
In Trieste, on Italy’s northeastern border, more than 400 migrants have been living without food, among rats and garbage — and in a political quagmire — as they wait for responses to their asylum applications.
The Refugees in Libya movement has posted shocking images to awaken our consciences. But here, all is silent, and the hope for humanity is entrusted to a Europe that is reborn from the bottom up.
The European migrant crisis is once again making headlines, this time from the small island of Lampedusa, Italy. It exposes not only the far right’s eagerness to exploit the issue of immigration, but also the delicate balance of power in electoral terms.
Libya’s catastrophic flood last week coincided with massive arrivals of migrants on the Italian island of Lampedusa. What look at first like two distinct stories are part of the same mounting crisis that the world is simply not prepared to face: climate migration.
Described as everything from a “migrant invasion” to a “hybrid attack”, the crisis along Poland’s border with Belarus has been heating up for the past two months. But the conflict has now been made worse by the arrival of the Wagner mercenary grouop in Belarus. This leaves migrants, many fleeing conflict elsewhere, stuck between the two borders.
As people open their homes to Ukrainian refugees, some in Germany and elsewhere in Europe are criticizing the lack of a similar welcome for Syrians in 2015. Do we have a responsibility to offer the same level of help to all those in need — and are we even capable of that? The answer might just be found in philosophy.
In the southern city of El Hamma, young Tunisians attempt to emigrate all the time for a dangerous journey across the Mediterranean. One recent tragedy left dozens dead.
The populist Five-Star Movement and the right-wing League won over half the vote in the struggling mid-sized city of Foggia by promising more jobs and less immigration.
Anti-immigrant rhetoric has become increasingly commonplace as political forces jockey for position ahead of this Sunday’s national elections.
ABIDJAN — Jumping and dancing to the rhythm of the popular urban music zouglou, they snap pictures on their smartphones of their idols performing onstage. Always smiling and never sitting still, Ivory Coast’s millennials have been nicknamed the “génération pressée pressée,” the generation that is always in a rush. Young Ivorians are dynamic and curious, […]
The government’s placement of migrants could increase the population of Vaccarozzi di Erbezzo, a miniscule mountain village above Verona, more than tenfold.
LAGUNA LARGA — Four months ago, hundreds of villagers were expelled from their land in the jungles of northern Guatemala. The government claimed they were encroaching on a protected national park, sending over 700 men, women, and children fleeing to the nearby Mexican border. According to the Guatemalan daily Prensa Libre, the refugees continue to […]
CAGLIARI — Just over 280 kilometers (174 miles) of Mediterranean water separates the Algerian port city of Annaba from the Sulcis on the southwest coast of the Italian island of Sardinia. As Italy continues to crack down on trafficking routes linking Libya to its other major island, Sicily, attention is shifting to new routes. Algiers-based […]
SFAX — Plastic bags litter the fields that separate the highway from the Mediterranean Sea. Tunisian fishermen sail their boats in the Gulf of Gabes, between the cities of Sfax and Zarzis — and just 120 kilometers from the Italian island of Lampedusa. Indeed, recently the fishermen’s haul has begun to include migrants picked up […]
While the EU seeks an agreement with Libya to halt the influx of migrants across the Mediterranean, the prospect of a better life elsewhere is what all in rural Ethiopia talk about.
ORISTANO — Club scouts and retired players from across Italy have come to this town on the Italian island of Sardinia to find new soccer talent among recently arrived African migrants. They offer their services to the migrants so that one day they might have a shot at Italy’s top professional league, the Serie A. […]
LA CRUZ — Yet another migrant crisis for the world: the tiny Central American nation of Costa Rica is now faced with the arrival of thousands of Haitians, many by way of crisis-hit Brazil. Over the past four months, some 8,500 Haitians have entered the tiny Central American nation, reports La Nación, based in the […]
The weakening power of the “Mother of Europe” comes at a bad time for both Germany and the rest of the continent.
Among all the big numbers we’ll hear broadcast at the lavish ceremony for the opening of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, whether it’s the 5,000 people volunteering at the event or the 10,500 athletes competing in it, the number 10 will perhaps resonate most deeply with the world. That’s the number of members who comprise […]
BERLIN — It’s been a year since German Chancellor Angela Merkel made a Palestinian refugee teen burst into tears live on national television. Reem Sahwil was 14 years old, and living on a temporary residence permit, when she was invited with others for a townhall-style public encounter with Merkel on July 15, 2015, in the […]
Die Tageszeitung, July 20th Monday’s gruesome axe attack on a commuter train in southern Germany left many unanswered questions on the Wednesday front page of German daily Die Tageszeitung, as evidenced by its enigmatic headline made of just four question marks. On Monday evening, a 17-year-old man armed with a knife and an axe wounded […]
SAN JOSÉ — A troubling new sea-bound migration route has opened up, as some 20,000 migrants from African countries are believed to have flocked to Costa Rica, according to a recently released International Organization for Migration (IOM) report. La Nación, a daily in the Costa Rican capital of San José, reports that the figure of […]
In the small Sicilian town Of Mineo is a sprawling facility where asylum seekers, many of whom have survived perilous journeys, live in limbo and face exploitation.
TURIN — Refugees have come to Italy from all across war-torn Iraq and Syria, from the monasteries of Mosul to the Assyrian villages of the Khabur valley and the Christian churches of the Nineveh plains. Among the millions now languishing in refugee camps are people from all walks of life, including government bureaucrats, university professors, […]
SABRATHA — It’s just past 10 p.m., and Omar, Mohammed and Isa are driving on the Mediterranean coast highway that links the Libyan capital of Tripoli with the Tunisian border. In the distance, flares of burning natural gas emanating from the Mellitah oil terminal light up the pitch black night. The three men, all in […]
PANAMA PAPERS SET OFF GLOBAL REACTION A massive leak of more than 11 million documents has exposed an immense network of offshore shell companies, many of them illegal. The documents — dubbed the “Panama Papers” — were obtained by German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung and reveal the involvement of 72 current and former heads of state. […]
“BREAKTHROUGH” MIGRANT DEAL European leaders and Turkish officials have reached an agreement in principle that German Chancellor Angela Merkel described as a “breakthrough if it becomes reality.” The deal, whose final details still need to be settled, would see Turkey take back migrants who have traveled from Turkey to Greece but don’t meet criteria for […]
N. KOREA’S NUKE THREAT North Korea has threatened to launch “indiscriminate” nuclear strikes against South Korea and the U.S. as the latter kicks off its annual military drill in the Korean Peninsula today. “If we push the buttons to annihilate the enemies right now, all bases of provocations will be reduced to a sea of […]
The village of Sutera was facing demographic doom as young people have been leaving for generations. Then locals started to wonder about those migrants coming to Italy.
FRANKFURT — It’s a Thursday morning on the No. 39 bus in Frankfurt, Germany. Suddenly, a migrant woman with an accent begins to complain loudly and aggressively about a woman wearing a niqab. “I don’t feel safe next to her,” she says to no one in particular. The other passengers remain silent, though one eventually […]
PARIS — As investigators follow possible leads from Syria to Greece and Belgium, Friday’s deadly and meticulously coordinated assault in Paris was no doubt very much a European attack. Governments across the continent are busy taking measures to enhance security against a growing threat of similar coordinated terror assaults. FRANCE French authorities carried out anti-terror […]
From local politics to the the battle against polio to a banned prostitution film, here’s a quick tour of what has been happening in Morocco in recent days.
Photo: Velar Grant/Zuma POSSIBLE MH370 DEBRIS FOUND A two-meter wing section of an aircraft has washed up on the French Island of Reunion in the Indian Ocean, local authorities announced today. Malaysia’s Transport Minister Abdul Aziz Kaprawi said the debris is “almost certainly” from a Boeing 777, meaning it could be a piece of the […]
Photo: Amazon/ZUMA MAN DIES AS MIGRANTS STORM CHUNNEL A Sudanese man died overnight in the French city of Calais after some 1,500 migrants tried to storm the Channel Tunnel, or Chunnel, to reach the UK, Le Monde reports. French police believe he may have been crushed by a truck exiting one of the shuttles that […]
From Hungary to Switzerland, fortifications are rising in the heart of Europe, where the once-heralded borderless zone is being diminished by the day.
Kos is one of the Greek islands closest to the Turkish coast and receives hundreds of Syrian and Afghan refugees every day, a heavy burden for a country already ravaged by economic crisis.