French police are inflicting misery on migrants in the northern port of Calais, routinely tearing down their tents and forcing them to wander the streets as part of a deterrence policy, Human Rights Watch said in a report Thursday.
Newspapers are reporting that a group of eight Iranian Kurdish migrants were fired at by French police as they attempted to launch a boat on the French coast near Dunkirk. The migrants, who were hoping to make it to the UK, were hit by rubber bullets. At least two were injured.
A man from sub-Saharan Africa was killed in a fire in the Sicilian city of Castelvetrano. The fire broke out at a migrant camp inside a former concrete plant. The property had been occupied for years by foreigners who come to the area to harvest olives.
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has spoken out against a new center for asylum seekers that was opened by the EU and the Greek government on September 18 on the Greek island of Samos, saying that it is "like a prison".
The new facility is one of five being built with EU funds. Rights groups have complained that the Samos camp, with its barbed-wire fences and surveillance cameras, is more like a jail.
The Vathy camp was overtaken by a major fire on the eve of migrants being transferred out. Many are headed to a new €43 million ($50 millon) "closed" high-tech secure facility.
Dozens of Iraqi Kurds and Afghans have sought the help of the European Court of Human Rights over asylum claims. The EU has blamed Belarus for the recent build up of migrants on its border.
The Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights has called on Poland to protect the human rights of Afghan migrants stuck at its border with Belarus. The migrants have been camped out in the open for the past two weeks.
In Lithuania, some migrants have been detained for more than a month in camps hastily established by local authorities. They are exposed to harsh conditions and are isolated without access to information. The Lithuanian authorities say they don’t have the capacity to examine each individual claim for protection.
The good weather on Thursday saw more migrants attempting to cross the Channel. 120 migrants were rescued, confirmed the French maritime authorities. One migrant was found unconscious on a sinking boat and flown to hospital by helicopter; he later died.
Around 800 migrants are stuck at the Rudninkai camp in Lithuania after crossing the border from Belarus. They say the situation is very bad and complain about lack of medical care and inedible food.
Iraq has begun to fly back some of its citizens who had flown in to Belarus on tourist visas, in the hope of making it over the border to Lithuania and the EU. Eighty reportedly returned to Baghdad on Monday, and 200 are expected to make the journey on Tuesday.