3 April 2016 (FRANCE24) – Migrants waving signs that read “We want freedom” protested on the Greek island of Chios on Sunday, a day before a controversial EU deal that will see hundreds of people deported back to Turkey was due to come into effect. An estimated 750 people will be sent back to Turkey […]
GENEVA, 24 March 2016 (UNHCR) – The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein on Thursday expressed serious concerns about the recent agreement between the European Union and Turkey, pointing to what he termed “a contradiction at the heart of the agreement,” as well as raising concerns regarding arbitrary detention of refugees […]
16 March 2016 (UN) – Making Turkey the “gatekeeper’ does not absolve Europe from its responsibility of welcoming migrants, a United Nations human rights expert today, warning that the only way for Europe to secure its borders is to offer safe and regular channels for mobility. “European member states once responsible for drafting key legislation […]
12 March 2016 (BBC News) – The BBC has been given a video showing Turkish coast guards using sticks against a boat full of migrants as they sail to Greece in the Aegean Sea. The incident is said to have happened in Turkish waters as the migrants were on their way to the island of […]
By Bill McKibben 5 March 2016 (Boston Globe) – Thursday, while the nation debated the relative size of Republican genitalia, something truly awful happened. Across the northern hemisphere, the temperature, if only for a few hours, apparently crossed a line: it was more than two degrees Celsius above “normal” for the first time in recorded […]
By Stacy Morford1 March 2016 (Earth Institute) – In the years before the Syrian conflict erupted, the region’s worst drought on record set in across the Levant, destroying crops and restricting water supplies in the already water-stressed region. A new study shows that that drought, from 1998-2012, wasn’t just the most severe in a century […]
4 March 2016 (UN) – Warning Europe is running out of time to solve the current refugee situation, the UN refugee chief today outlined a detailed six-point plan ahead of a key meeting of European Union leaders and Turkey in Brussels next week. “This is as much a crisis of European solidarity as it is […]
1 March 2016 (UN) – Europe faces an imminent humanitarian crisis, largely of its own making, following a rapid build-up of people in already over-stretched Greece, the United Nations refugee agency warned today. “With governments not working together despite having already reached agreements in a number of areas, and country after country imposing new border […]
25 February 2016 (UN) – The top United Nations human rights official expressed serious concern today over security measures adopted last week by the police chiefs of five European countries, which he warned are already negatively impacting the human rights of refugees and migrants in southern and central Europe and compounding the “already exceptionally difficult […]
23 February 2016 (UN) – Refugees and migrants crossing the seas of Southeast Asia died at a rate three times higher than those in the Mediterranean last year, a new United Nations report has found, highlighting the urgency of greater life-saving cooperation among the affected States. The report, Mixed Maritime Movements in South-East Asia, from […]