Afghan, Pakistani Deportees Flee Detention Center in Turkey
Around 100 migrants facing deportation from Turkey escaped detention after a fire broke out in a repatriation center in Istanbul.
The inmates set furniture ablaze to protest their living conditions on November 19. Amid the chaos, some 123 people poured out of the front gate. Turkey later said around 20 people had been detained.
Most of the escapees are from Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to Turkey’s Hurriyet newspaper.
Thousands of Afghans are stuck in Turkey after the E.U.-Turkey deal to stop migrant boat crossings to Greece. Earlier this year, human rights groups accused Turkey of forcing some Afghan asylum seekers back to Afghanistan.
Children Evacuated From Calais Camp ‘Forced to Work’
Several of the children evacuated from a Calais camp last month say they are being forced to work, according to Safe Passage UK.
The British charity interviewed 33 minors now living in reception centers around France. Three said they were picking fruit for supermarkets and had been afraid to refuse the work in case it harmed their ability to seek asylum in the U.K., Britain’s Observer newspaper reported.
Eight of the teenagers said they had not received clean clothes since they arrived at the centers, and 13 said they felt better off in the squalid migrant camp in Calais. Two of the children who were meant to take part in the survey had since escaped the reception centers, and another two were considering fleeing.
Around 2,000 unaccompanied children were living in the ‘Jungle’ camp before it was demolished last month. Most of them want to settle in the U.K. and around 350 children from Calais have been brought to Britain so far. Last week, the British government said only unaccompanied children from Syria and Sudan would be resettled from France.
U.N. Refugee Chief: Populist Politicians in West ‘Misleading’ on Refugees
U.N. high commissioner for refugees Filippo Grandi urged rich countries to protect the right to asylum amid a growing tide of populism and nationalism.
In an interview with Reuters, Grandi said politicians in the U.S. and Europe were “misleading” in their exploitation of people’s fears, linking them to the presence of foreigners.
“Instead of explaining to people that refugees need help, instead of multiplying efforts to help people in their countries or trying to solve conflicts, address poverty, they have … presented these people as people that come to rich countries, abuse the values or steal the wealth or take jobs away,” Grandi said.
“Rather than building walls we should address in the proper manner these movements and manage them in a principled and pragmatic way so we can diminish the tensions,” he told the news agency.
Recommended Reads:
- Deutsche-Welle: Will the Families of Syrian Refugees Be Denied the Right to Reunification?
- The Washington Post: The Crossing
- Human Rights Watch: Burma: New Wave of Destruction in Rohingya Villages
- The New York Times: Germany Cracks Down on Salafists to Shield Refugees
- Reuters: A Surge in U.S. Deportations Could Swamp an Overtaxed System