Czech President Links ‘Migrant Crisis’ to Terrorist Attacks
Czech president Milos Zeman claimed that ongoing migration into Europe has introduced new terrorism threats, according to the latest media reports.
In his annual Christmas speech, the president said, “today almost no one doubts the connection between the migration wave and terrorist attacks.”
He added that the Czech Republic should not voluntarily take in migrants if the country wants to avoid terrorist attacks on its soil, referring to the E.U.’s plan to proportionally distribute refugees among its member states.
Zeman added that he would support migrants “on their territory or on neighboring territories” and helping Italy and Greece, which have received the majority of asylum seekers. But he ruled out the option of his country resettling refugees. “Placing Muslim, hardly compatible migrants on our territory would mean creating a breeding ground for potential terrorist attacks,” he said.
UNHCR: Migrants Along the Balkan Route Face Illegal Deportation
Migrants trying to reach Western Europe on the Balkan route face increasing risks of mass deportations, which the U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) has decried as an illegal measure.
Some 1,000 migrants “were expelled in November alone along the Balkans route … more than before,” Mirjana Milenkovska, UNHCR spokeswoman in Serbia, told Agence France-Presse.
Human rights organizations and activists confirmed that the number of “legally registered” asylum seekers who were then deported from Serbia to Bulgaria and Macedonia, without having their asylum cases heard, has increased.
One such case included 109 migrants who were deported from Serbia to Macedonia in November.
“They all came back to Belgrade and told us the same story: They were awakened at 4 a.m., put in a police van and then driven to a field in the middle of a forest on the border with Macedonia,” Serbian activist Gordan Paunovic told AFP.
The Balkans route via Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia and Hungary was popular for hundreds of thousands of migrants and refugees trying to reach Western Europe from Greece until Macedonia shut its border, followed by similar closures by its neighbors, in March 2016.
Sudanese Refugee Dies After Collapsing in Manus Island Detention Center
Faysal Ishak Ahmed, a 27-year-old Sudanese refugee, died Saturday after suffering a seizure inside Australia’s offshore detention center on Manus Island, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.
“Another patient heard him saying, ‘I cannot breathe, my heart has stopped,’ and shortly afterwards he fell down on his forehead with thick liquid and water [that] came out through his nose and mouth,” a witness claimed.
Despite being airlifted to an Australian hospital, Ahmed did not survive. His medical condition had been deteriorating for six months, and he had repeatedly visited medical staff, according to other Sudanese refugees currently in the detention center.
“Faysal is yet another casualty of the systematic neglect that characterizes Manus Island and offshore detention,” Ian Rintoul, spokesman for the Refugee Action Coalition, told the Guardian.
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