A new report from the UK charity Doctors of the World, based on case studies over two years 2018-2020, highlights how the NHS charging policy in the UK for those without an accepted migration status is leading to delays, destitution and sometimes barriers to adequate care. Some have died as a result.
On Sunday, French police announced that they found the body of a migrant on the beach at Sangatte on the Channel coast. The man did not have any documents on him but was wearing a life jacket. Prosecutors suspect he had been hoping to cross the water towards Dover in the UK.
According to a report in the Telegraph on Sunday, Britain's Clandestine Channel Threat Commander is considering using nets in the Channel in order to deter migrant boats from crossing.
At the beginning of October, a flight chartered by the British Home Office left the UK for France with just one migrant on board. Under the Dublin agreement, the UK authorities say he should pursue his asylum claim in France. On Wednesday, October 7, the man’s lawyers went to court in France to try and stop his repatriation to Africa.
The British Home Secretary (interior minister) in a speech at the Conservative Party conference pledged to fix the "fundamentally broken asylum system" in the country. She said it was currently "neither firm nor fair," and needed a raft of new laws which she would start introducing in 2021.
Four men are due to go on trial in Britain on Monday in connection with the deaths of 39 Vietnamese migrants whose bodies were found in a lorry in southeast England.
Ministerial sources cited by the BBC and the Financial Times revealed that the British government took into consideration the idea of using an island in the Atlantic Ocean as a possible destination for a gathering and filtering center for asylum seekers awaiting a response from the United Kingdom.
European police have arrested a dozen people suspected of smuggling migrants across the English Channel to Britain. The mainly Iranian gang reportedly charged migrants thousands of euros per crossing.
A new music video, created by Together Productions and I Speak Music and supported by the IOM and other partners, brings musicians and artists from around the world together in a collaborative project to connect people in solidarity with displaced communities.
Afghan interpreters who worked with the British armed forces in Afghanistan will be granted asylum in the UK, announced the British Home Secretary and the UK’s Defense Secretary on Saturday, September 19.
According to reports in several British newspapers, the British government is planning to provide weekly flights to return migrants arriving in the UK via the Channel. The plans were revealed after a freedom of information request made by the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph.
More and more people are taking to small dinghies to cross the English Channel to the UK, in spite of the efforts on both sides to stop them. Many are desperate to escape unemployment and homelessness they experienced elsewhere in Europe.