Danial Alfahel is a 28-year-old Syrian refugee who fled Damascus in 2015. After a long journey, he wound up in Germany, although he was originally aiming to get to the Netherlands. Four years later he is making a new life for himself in Dresden, plays music in a band, works and takes people on tours of Dresden to talk about the city he has grown to love and the reasons that brought him here.
Around 1500 migrants were rounded up in northwestern Bosnia and moved to a camp in the country on Wednesday. The town of Bihac cannot provide adequate shelter for these people in the winter weather, authorities said.
SPIKE Dresden is a prize-winning youth and cultura center in constant evolution. It started up in 1995 to meet the needs of one marginalized community, youth who were interested in Hip Hop not long after the fall of the Berlin Wall when a lot was in flux. Since 2015 it has expanded to meet the needs of a new community in need of support: migrants, refugees and asylum seekers.
Dresden is a city of contrasts. It is proud of its past as a center for Saxon royalty and likes to call itself "Florence on the Elbe." But Dresden’s recent reputation is more for being right-wing and hostile towards foreigners. It is one of the places in eastern Germany where anti-migrant and anti-Islam feelings have run highest. These feelings have also mobilized another half of the city to make sure that welcoming refugees and migrants remains a priority; numerous integration projects abound in Dresden.
The UN has called on Bosnia and Herzegovina to stop forcing migrants on its territory towards a camp near the Bosnian-Croatian border in Vucjak. They say the camp is “unsafe” and “unfit for housing people.”
Amnesty International reported at the weekend that Ahmed H., a Syrian man who spent four years in Hungarian prisons after being “unjustly convicted” of terrorism charges, has finally been allowed to return to his wife and family in Cyprus.
The numbers of migrants arriving on the Greek islands remains high this week. Various authorities have estimated that there are almost 29,000 migrants on the islands in various hotspots and migrant centers.
The far-right group Britain First has launched a campaign called "Operation White Cliffs" to patrol Britain's beaches in a bid to stop migrants attempting to land on UK shores after crossing the Channel in small boats. Local anti-racism campaigners have organized counter demonstrations and British authorities have meanwhile advised all citizens to avoid taking direct action and to leave that work to the authorities.
The European Commission's incoming President Ursula von der Leyen has been coming under fire ever since she announced some of the titles for her new Commissioners. She was in particular criticized for the portfolio she handed to the Commissioner in charge of migration, security, employment and education which she wants to call "Protecting our European Way of Life."
The migration expert Gerald Knaus and the German refugee rights organization Pro Asyl are warning that the situation on the Greek islands is becoming insupportable, both for migrants and the Greek authorities. Their calls are backed up by the latest UNHCR figures.
The private rescue ship, Ocean Viking operated by Doctors without borders (MSF) and SOS Mediterranee, picked up a further 34 people in the Mediterranean in the early hours of Tuesday morning. The migrants had issued a distress call on Monday and had been picked up first by a small sailing yacht.
The UK government policy to charge overseas visitors and those without papers in the UK for national health services (NHS) is putting vulnerable migrants at risk, say midwives in a new report from Maternity Action and the Royal College of Midwives (RCM).