The exclave of Melilla, a 12-km2 piece of Spanish territory located on the Mediterranean coastline of north Africa, has a border with Morocco. For some, this Europe-outside-Europe represents a way to pass through the walls of Europe. Due to a…
In 2015 alone, 140,000 people have made the perilous journey in what is known as the Central Mediterranean route, a stretch of sea that lies between Libya and Sicily. Many of them had written the phone numbers of relatives back…
Promoting human rights and protecting human dignity are among the core values of the European Union (EU), whose institutions are legally bound by the Charter of Fundamental Rights where these values are enshrined. That is why saving and protecting the…
When looking at numbers of arrivals and deaths in the Mediterranean, it is important to ask how robust the data are and what they represent. If we are to frame and inform more accurately the policy challenges facing Europe, it…
It is also frequent in the Caribbean, where mixed migration – including trafficking and smuggling – among the multitude of island nations and particularly to the United States is an increasing phenomenon; in the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman…
Somalis and Afghans still figure in the top ten nationalities of asylum-seeker numbers recorded in the European Union (EU). Over one third of asylum seekers from both countries in 2014 were not granted refugee status – but nor were they…
Criticism is growing against EU leaders for failing refugees by neglect at a time of increased number of refugees. Simultaneously, many questions are being asked as to why people – especially from Sub-Saharan Africa – come to Europe. Eritreans constitute…
Asylum seekers arriving in Europe are often seen as part of an undifferentiated mass, and the complex stories of how they arrived are often submerged in the effort to control or manage migration. However, many of them are driven to…
At the beginning of August 2015, 37 Iraqi refugee families left my neighbourhood in East Amman, Jordan, in order to travel to Europe. After years of waiting for resettlement through the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) they decided…
The current migration from Africa to Europe is a symptom of deeply rooted problems that exist on the continent. While there is some truth to the narrative that some progress has been made and that the economies of some of…