France's Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said Tuesday (September 19), his government will not welcome any migrants coming from Italy's tiny Lampedusa island which saw the arrival of a record number of aliens last week.

France's Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said Tuesday (September 19), his government will not welcome any migrants coming from Italy's tiny Lampedusa island which saw the arrival of a record number of aliens last week. Speaking on French television, Darmanin said the French government had conveyed to Italy that it was "ready to help them return people to countries with which we have good diplomatic relations", citing the example of Ivory Coast and Senegal. However, France "will not welcome migrants" from the island, he added. Last week, more than 8,500 migrants crashed on the island whose total population is only 6,000, according to the UN's International Organization for Migration. Images and videos of thousands of migrants, arriving on the island, scaling the perimeter fence and wandering around went viral on social media platforms. Assessing the gravity of the situation, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen travelled to the island over the weekend and announced a 10-point emergency action plan. Watch | Lampedusa grapples with surge in migrant arrivals × However, her plan of sharing the burden of new arrival met with stiff resistance from bloc members. Prior to France, the right-wing governments in Poland and Hungary refused to accept the migrants from Italy. Reflecting on the situation, Italy's Minister Giorgia Meloni said the pressure of migrants arriving in the country was "unsustainable" and called on the European Union to intervene. "The migratory pressure that Italy has been experiencing since the beginning of the year is unsustainable," she said, adding that it sprang from the "difficult international situation" in Africa. The figure is almost double what was recorded in the same period of 2022. Also read | Migrant crisis: EU chief and Italy's PM visit Lampedusa, promise swift action Why Lampedusa? Lampedusa, located just 90 miles (around 145 kilometres) off the eastern coast of Tunisia is Italy's first port of call for people crossing from North Africa. Recent months have seen a great influx of migrants using Tunisia as the main departure point to enter Europe. Earlier, most migrants attempting to leave the conflict-ridden zones of Africa and the Middle East used to take the Libya route to enter the continent. However, the geographical closeness to Lampedusa and inaction from the Italian authorities to stop the arrivals has meant migrants are increasingly choosing this route to enter Europe. Cumulatively, over 118,500 boat migrants have arrived in Italy since the start of the year, according to Italy's interior ministry data. (With inputs from agencies) WATCH WION LIVE HERE:

France flat out refuses to 'welcome' migrants from Lampedusa

The Italian island of Lampedusa is grappling with the new wave of migrant crisis. The island has been a witness to a record number of migrant landings, a vast majority of them arriving via sea from North Africa, Italy.

Italy migrant crisis: EU Chief, Italy PM Giorgia Meloni visit Lampedusa island

A report by the Guardian, on Friday (September 1) said that the United Kingdom government has placed more than 100 lone asylum-seeker children in recent weeks. This comes months after the British High Court ruled that the government’s “routine” housing of unaccompanied child asylum seekers in hotels is unlawful.&nbsp;

<h2>Over 100 lone asylum-seeker children placed in hotels</h2>

The UK Home Office, in a recent court hearing, admitted that they placed at least 130 newly arrived lone asylum-seeker children in hotels, as of August 15 and that some of them had been there before July 27.&nbsp;

The UK High Court, earlier this year, ruled that the Kent county council and the Home Office’s “routine” use of accommodating children in hotels was unlawful. Last week, the court also determined that Kent county council’s approach to children has been unlawful.&nbsp;

The government’s continued use of hotels has also reportedly been condemned by human rights and refugee organisations since more than 200 children have gone missing, reported the Guardian.&nbsp;

More than 100 children are still missing from multiple hotels that the government had placed them leading charity Every Child Protected Against Trafficking (ECPAT) and Brighton and Hove city council to raise concerns about the large number of missing children, reported the Guardian.&nbsp;

“There is a serious possibility that a criminal offence is being committed by hotel owners contracted by the secretary of state to manage what are de facto unregistered children’s homes,” said Brighton and Hove city council, in its arguments submitted to the court.&nbsp;

The British media report had earlier also noted that dozens of children had disappeared from one hotel in Brighton.

<h2>Rise in number of migrants</h2>

The Kent county council which given its geographical location receives a large number of asylum-seeking children who arrive at the Kent coast in small boats. In recent weeks, the council has admitted that it is struggling to meet its legal obligations to the UK as well as to the children.

The county officials said that they are looking after 661 asylum-seeker children along with 1,030 asylum-seeker care leavers.&nbsp;

“It is with deep regret that, due to ever escalating arrivals, Kent county council is once again in a position whereby it cannot meet both its statutory duties to accept all new unaccompanied child asylum-seeker arrivals, care for them safely and discharge all of its other duties towards vulnerable children and young people in Kent,” said Sue Chandler, cabinet member for children’s services at Kent county council, as quoted by the Guardian.&nbsp;

In July, the High Court ruled that children could be placed in hotels for “very short periods in true emergency situations” but not “systematically or routinely”. At the time, a Home Office spokeswoman had said they had “no option” but to temporarily use hotels.&nbsp;

They had also assured that they are working with the Kent county council as well as local authorities across the UK to “ensure unaccompanied children are provided with the crucial care placements they need.”

The UK high court is also in the midst of presiding over&nbsp;a case calling&nbsp;for this group of children to be protected with the next hearing&nbsp;scheduled for&nbsp;September 15.&nbsp;

&nbsp;

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A report by the Guardian, on Friday (September 1) said that the United Kingdom government has placed more than 100 lone asylum-seeker children in recent weeks. This comes months after the British High Court ruled that the government’s “routine” housing of unaccompanied child asylum seekers in hotels is unlawful.

A report by the Guardian, on Friday (September 1) said that the United Kingdom government has placed more than 100 lone asylum-seeker children in recent weeks. This comes months after the British High Court ruled that the government’s “routine” housing of unaccompanied child asylum seekers in hotels is unlawful. Over 100 lone asylum-seeker children placed in hotels The UK Home Office, in a recent court hearing, admitted that they placed at least 130 newly arrived lone asylum-seeker children in hotels, as of August 15 and that some of them had been there before July 27. The UK High Court, earlier this year, ruled that the Kent county council and the Home Office’s “routine” use of accommodating children in hotels was unlawful. Last week, the court also determined that Kent county council’s approach to children has been unlawful. The government’s continued use of hotels has also reportedly been condemned by human rights and refugee organisations since more than 200 children have gone missing, reported the Guardian. More than 100 children are still missing from multiple hotels that the government had placed them leading charity Every Child Protected Against Trafficking (ECPAT) and Brighton and Hove city council to raise concerns about the large number of missing children, reported the Guardian. “There is a serious possibility that a criminal offence is being committed by hotel owners contracted by the secretary of state to manage what are de facto unregistered children’s homes,” said Brighton and Hove city council, in its arguments submitted to the court. The British media report had earlier also noted that dozens of children had disappeared from one hotel in Brighton. Rise in number of migrants The Kent county council which given its geographical location receives a large number of asylum-seeking children who arrive at the Kent coast in small boats. In recent weeks, the council has admitted that it is struggling to meet its legal obligations to the UK as well as to the children. The county officials said that they are looking after 661 asylum-seeker children along with 1,030 asylum-seeker care leavers. “It is with deep regret that, due to ever escalating arrivals, Kent county council is once again in a position whereby it cannot meet both its statutory duties to accept all new unaccompanied child asylum-seeker arrivals, care for them safely and discharge all of its other duties towards vulnerable children and young people in Kent,” said Sue Chandler, cabinet member for children’s services at Kent county council, as quoted by the Guardian. In July, the High Court ruled that children could be placed in hotels for “very short periods in true emergency situations” but not “systematically or routinely”. At the time, a Home Office spokeswoman had said they had “no option” but to temporarily use hotels. They had also assured that they are working with the Kent county council as well as local authorities across the UK to “ensure unaccompanied children are provided with the crucial care placements they need.” The UK high court is also in the midst of presiding over a case calling for this group of children to be protected with the next hearing scheduled for September 15. WATCH WION LIVE HERE You can now write for wionews.com and be a part of the community. Share your stories and opinions with us here.

UK Home Office places more than 100 asylum-seeker children in hotels, defies high court ruling: Report

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is going back to the issue that had earlier given a spike in the popularity. He is expected to travel the Port of Dover - this is the first point of entry for the migrants arriving on boats from Europe.

UK PM Rishi Sunak seeks to regain Tory trust, will visit Port of Dover

Big Apple is facing both a crippling labour crunch and a migrant crisis and is in a bid to fill in thousands of vacancies. Top New York city office holders had now called upon the federal government to fast track work for permits most of whom have arrived in New York over the past year.

Big Apple faces crippling labour crunch and a migrant crisis

Democrat New York City Mayor Eric Adams on Friday said the migrant crisis had nearly 'destroyed' his city while making a desperate plea to the Biden administration to help with the flow of immigrants in the city.

Democrat New York City Mayor Eric Adams on Friday said the migrant crisis had nearly 'destroyed' his city while making a desperate plea to the Biden administration to help with the flow of immigrants in the city. “The city is being destroyed by the migrant crisis,” said Adams during a panel discussion with the African American Mayors Association in Washington, DC. “And none of my folks came to Washington DC to fight for the resources that’s going to undermine every agency in our city," he added. Adams' statement comes a few days after he blasted President Biden for turning his back on the city. He blamed the Democrats for a projected $4.2 billion budget shortfall that can very well turn the current situation into a humanitarian crisis. “The national government has turned its back on New York City. Every service in this city is going to be impacted by the asylum seeker crisis," said Adams. “This is in the lap of the president of the United States! The president of the United States can give us the ability to allow people to work. This is in the lap of the executive branch of the United States of America." WATCH | US: NYC Mayor Eric Adams says, 'No room for migrants' | English News | WION × The steady influx of migrants Over the last year, the Big Apple has witnessed the arrival of more than 55,000 foreigners, claiming to be seeking refuge from prosecution and violence. According to the City Hall, over 200 migrants arrive in the city daily and it costs as much as $380 per day per household to provide food and shelter to them. “Over 50,000 people come to the city of New York seeking assistance and we are told, ‘You will not allow them to work, you have to...give them food, clothing if they need, give them the basic services that they need, you’re supposed to make sure they have three meals a day, make sure that all the children are educated — and while you’re doing that, New York City, we’re not going to give you anything in return,'” added the mayor. ALSO READ | Migrant 'crisis' prompts New York City to declare emergency The majority of the migrants are being serviced using taxpayer-funded emergency shelters, comprising hotels mostly while others are being stationed at the eight Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Centers (HERRCs). (With inputs from agencies) WATCH WION LIVE HERE:

Democrat Mayor Eric Adams says migrant crisis has destroyed New York City, calls out Biden administration

A boat with around 400 migrants stuck in the middle of nowhere between Malta and Libya is slowly sinking. Alarm Phone, a website that helps refugees in need of rescue informed about the incident on Twitter saying it had received a call from the boat, late in the night.

A boat with around 400 migrants stuck in the middle of nowhere between Malta and Libya is slowly sinking. Alarm Phone, a website that helps refugees in need of rescue informed about the incident on Twitter saying it had received a call from the boat, late in the night. Alarm Phone said the boat had run out of fuel and migrants were using buckets to throw out the water. It added that the people on board were panicking after the captain left the ship while several required medical attention, including a pregnant woman. "A woman told us of serious conditions on board: the captain has left the ship and no one is able to get the boat going again; many people have medical care needs, including a child, a pregnant woman, and a person with a physical disability," read one of the tweets. Una donna ci ha riferito gravi condizioni a bordo: il capitano ha lasciato la nave e nessuno è in grado di rimettere in moto la barca; molte persone hanno necessità di cure mediche, tra cui un bambino, una donna incinta e una persona con disabilità fisica. #NonLasciateleAnnegare! — Alarm Phone (@alarm_phone) April 9, 2023 × ALSO WATCH | Italy Boat Tragedy: 63 bodies found, 36 still missing × As of the last update, the boat was in the Maltese Search and Rescue area (SAR) but it was unclear if the Maltese authorities were taking any action in launching a rescue operation. Another NGO named Sea-Watch International said it was carrying out searches for boats in distress in the Mediterranean Sea, including the one flagged by Alarm Phone. ALSO READ | At least 20 migrants missing after boat drowns off Tunisian coast, 17 rescued Previous instances Notably, this is not the first instance when North African migrants attempting to cross the Mediterranean to enter Europe have faced such a situation. On Saturday, At least 20 migrants have gone missing off the coast of Tunisia, as they tried to cross the treacherous Mediterranean to Italy. Although the coast guard managed to rescue 17 others from the same boat off the southern city of Sfax, the others were still untraceable. Of the 17 saved, two are in critical condition, said Sfax court judge Faouzi Masmousdi. Earlier this week, 440 migrants were rescued from an overcrowded fishing boat in the international waters off Malta. The complex operation to rescue the migrants took over 11 hours. The migrants on board spent four days at sea without any assistance, the last two without any food or water after setting sail from eastern Libya. (With inputs from agencies) WATCH WION LIVE HERE:

Migrant boat with 400 on board slowly sinking between Libya and Malta

A migrant’s camp set up on the Mexican side of the border with the US was dismantled by the Mexico police on Sunday due to security reasons, a local official said. The camps had been set up by around 600 migrants mostly from Venezuela in the city of Ciudad Juarez.

Police dismantle Mexican migrant camps at US border citing 'security' as reason

As tens of thousands of refugees shiver in the cold on Turkey’s borders with Europe and a new phase of the brutal Syrian war erupts - Russia, Turkey, the European Union (EU) and the international community are being presented with the bill for a flawed, short-term approach to the nine-year-old conflict that largely lacked empathy for millions of victims and was likely to magnify rather than resolve problems.

The failure of Western policymakers to adopt an approach that would have served Europe’s longer-term security interests and sought to end Syria’s suffering in ways that may have held out the promise of a sustainable resolution of the conflict is compounded by the failure to exploit what was always a fragile alliance between Russia and NATO-member Turkey.

With that alliance under strain, both in Syria, where Russia has warned that it cannot guarantee the safety of Turkish aircraft in Syrian airspace, and in Libya, where the two allies support opposing sides, multiple regional conflicts have begun to mesh.

Some analysts have suggested that Russia was seeking to enlist the support of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in Syria so that it could dump Turkey with which it is on the brink of military blows. The two Gulf states oppose Turkish ambitions in the Middle East and beyond.

The analysts point to recent contacts between Emirati, Russian and Syrian officials and the establishment of relations between Syria and Libya’s UAE and Russian-backed rebel force led by renegade commander Khalifa Haftar.

The various manoeuvres constitute variations on a theme.

The international community, including Russia, did little in the early years of the war to stop militant groups and regional powers from contributing to the violence by exploiting Syria’s power vacuum to their immediate advantage. That changed selectively when the Islamic State gained a territorial foothold in Syria and Iraq.

Similarly, much of the international community falsely assumed that a Syrian victory in Idlib, Syria’s last rebel stronghold, would create a fait accompli that Turkey would accept and that would pave the way to an end to the war and reconstruction.

Like in much of the Middle East where a failure to put one’s ears to the ground and hear the widespread discontent simmering at the surface that produced a decade of revolution and brutal counterrevolution, neither Russia nor its detractors read the writing on Syria’s walls.

If militants and external powers turned what started in 2011 as peaceful protests demanding reform rather than the overthrow of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the international community failed to recognise that nine years later criticism of the regime is widespread among an impoverished population traumatised by war.

Rather than creating an environment for reconciliation and reconstruction, Russian-supported Syrian military successes in retaking territory from rebels by force or in negotiated handovers have not been accompanied by a relieving of economic and social hardship, sparking intermittent anti-government protests and stepped up repression.

Much of the criticism focuses on the government’s failure to improve economic and living conditions, but like in the early days of the popular revolt, shies away from calls for regime change.

The improbability of a Russian-Syrian military victory putting Syria on a road towards peaceful resolution and recovery is highlighted by the fact that snap polling suggests that less than ten per cent of the millions of Syrian refugees and internally displaced persons would be willing to return to or remain in a country that continues to be ruled by Al-Assad and his regime.

As a result, Russia and Al-Assad appear to have adopted the kind of scorched earth policy that Israel’s military rejected in the late 1980s during the first Palestinian intifada or uprising.

In contrast to the military that told then Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin that the resolution needed to be political because the cost of a military solution would be too high, Russia and Al-Assad have concluded that no cost is too high. It is an approach that emulates Russia’s brutal crushing of rebellions in Chechnya in the 1990s.

“Russia realised that it cannot cement its military victories into permanent political gains through diplomacy within the projected remaining lifetime of the regime. Instead, it decided to employ the ‘Grozny doctrine’ of complete annihilation of all those who stand in the way of its strategic goals and bring the conflict to an end before the regime collapses,” said Syrian activist Labib al-Nahhas De La Ossa, referring to the Chechen capital that was virtually destroyed by Russian forces.

It's an approach that in violation of international law takes no heed of the consequences for innocent millions in Idlib or the fact that many, rather than supporting Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an erstwhile Al-Qaeda affiliate that controls part of the province, have repeatedly protested against it.

It's also an approach that potentially could spark a renewed refugee crisis in Europe with Turkey, already home to some four million refugees, no longer stopping fleeing Syrians and others from trying to cross its Greek and Bulgarian borders with the European Union.

Russia, in a cynical twist of irony, would likely be happy to see a repeat of the 2015 refugee crisis that fuelled support for far-right, anti-immigration and nativist forces in Europe who are empathetic to Moscow’s effort to weaken the trans-Atlantic alliance as well as the European Union with its adherence to Western values of democracy, human rights and the rule of law.

Even with that being the case, Russian policy towards Idlib and the rest of Syria is likely to only produce problematic outcomes: ensuring total victory for Al-Assad risks a break-up with Turkey, a key regional player, and forecloses chances for a sustainable resolution of the Syrian conflict that would allow for the voluntary return of refugees and displaced persons.

Continued Russian and Iranian-backed support for Al-Assad’s brutal regime will at best temporarily stabilise Syria and potentially open the door to a forced return of some refugees and displaced persons while setting the stage for another round of conflict.

An equally unsustainable alternative scenario, envisioned by De La Ossa, would involve a Russian-Turkish agreement to cram three million refugees into a tiny slice of Idlib in what would amount to sub-human conditions.

Said De La Ossa: “The humanitarian catastrophe that is Idlib has shown that the lessons from the beginning of World War II still apply: Appeasing dictators who are willing to kill massive numbers of people to realise their delusions of grandeur never works. But if the US, Europe, and the international community at large fail to heed these lessons, it will not only be Syrians who pay the price. “ 
 
(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are the personal views of the author and do not reflect the views of ZMCL)&nbsp;

As tens of thousands of refugees shiver in the cold on Turkey’s borders with Europe and a new phase of the brutal Syrian war erupts - Russia, Turkey, the European Union (EU) and the international community are being presented with the bill for a flawed, short-term approach to the nine-year-old conflict that largely lacked empathy for millions of victims and was likely to magnify rather than resolve problems.

As tens of thousands of refugees shiver in the cold on Turkey’s borders with Europe and a new phase of the brutal Syrian war erupts - Russia, Turkey, the European Union (EU) and the international community are being presented with the bill for a flawed, short-term approach to the nine-year-old conflict that largely lacked empathy for millions of victims and was likely to magnify rather than resolve problems. The failure of Western policymakers to adopt an approach that would have served Europe’s longer-term security interests and sought to end Syria’s suffering in ways that may have held out the promise of a sustainable resolution of the conflict is compounded by the failure to exploit what was always a fragile alliance between Russia and NATO-member Turkey. With that alliance under strain, both in Syria, where Russia has warned that it cannot guarantee the safety of Turkish aircraft in Syrian airspace, and in Libya, where the two allies support opposing sides, multiple regional conflicts have begun to mesh. Some analysts have suggested that Russia was seeking to enlist the support of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in Syria so that it could dump Turkey with which it is on the brink of military blows. The two Gulf states oppose Turkish ambitions in the Middle East and beyond. The analysts point to recent contacts between Emirati, Russian and Syrian officials and the establishment of relations between Syria and Libya’s UAE and Russian-backed rebel force led by renegade commander Khalifa Haftar. The various manoeuvres constitute variations on a theme. The international community, including Russia, did little in the early years of the war to stop militant groups and regional powers from contributing to the violence by exploiting Syria’s power vacuum to their immediate advantage. That changed selectively when the Islamic State gained a territorial foothold in Syria and Iraq. Similarly, much of the international community falsely assumed that a Syrian victory in Idlib, Syria’s last rebel stronghold, would create a fait accompli that Turkey would accept and that would pave the way to an end to the war and reconstruction. Like in much of the Middle East where a failure to put one’s ears to the ground and hear the widespread discontent simmering at the surface that produced a decade of revolution and brutal counterrevolution, neither Russia nor its detractors read the writing on Syria’s walls. If militants and external powers turned what started in 2011 as peaceful protests demanding reform rather than the overthrow of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the international community failed to recognise that nine years later criticism of the regime is widespread among an impoverished population traumatised by war. Rather than creating an environment for reconciliation and reconstruction, Russian-supported Syrian military successes in retaking territory from rebels by force or in negotiated handovers have not been accompanied by a relieving of economic and social hardship, sparking intermittent anti-government protests and stepped up repression. Much of the criticism focuses on the government’s failure to improve economic and living conditions, but like in the early days of the popular revolt, shies away from calls for regime change. The improbability of a Russian-Syrian military victory putting Syria on a road towards peaceful resolution and recovery is highlighted by the fact that snap polling suggests that less than ten per cent of the millions of Syrian refugees and internally displaced persons would be willing to return to or remain in a country that continues to be ruled by Al-Assad and his regime. As a result, Russia and Al-Assad appear to have adopted the kind of scorched earth policy that Israel’s military rejected in the late 1980s during the first Palestinian intifada or uprising. In contrast to the military that told then Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin that the resolution needed to be political because the cost of a military solution would be too high, Russia and Al-Assad have concluded that no cost is too high. It is an approach that emulates Russia’s brutal crushing of rebellions in Chechnya in the 1990s. “Russia realised that it cannot cement its military victories into permanent political gains through diplomacy within the projected remaining lifetime of the regime. Instead, it decided to employ the ‘Grozny doctrine’ of complete annihilation of all those who stand in the way of its strategic goals and bring the conflict to an end before the regime collapses,” said Syrian activist Labib al-Nahhas De La Ossa, referring to the Chechen capital that was virtually destroyed by Russian forces. It's an approach that in violation of international law takes no heed of the consequences for innocent millions in Idlib or the fact that many, rather than supporting Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an erstwhile Al-Qaeda affiliate that controls part of the province, have repeatedly protested against it. It's also an approach that potentially could spark a renewed refugee crisis in Europe with Turkey, already home to some four million refugees, no longer stopping fleeing Syrians and others from trying to cross its Greek and Bulgarian borders with the European Union. Russia, in a cynical twist of irony, would likely be happy to see a repeat of the 2015 refugee crisis that fuelled support for far-right, anti-immigration and nativist forces in Europe who are empathetic to Moscow’s effort to weaken the trans-Atlantic alliance as well as the European Union with its adherence to Western values of democracy, human rights and the rule of law. Even with that being the case, Russian policy towards Idlib and the rest of Syria is likely to only produce problematic outcomes: ensuring total victory for Al-Assad risks a break-up with Turkey, a key regional player, and forecloses chances for a sustainable resolution of the Syrian conflict that would allow for the voluntary return of refugees and displaced persons. Continued Russian and Iranian-backed support for Al-Assad’s brutal regime will at best temporarily stabilise Syria and potentially open the door to a forced return of some refugees and displaced persons while setting the stage for another round of conflict. An equally unsustainable alternative scenario, envisioned by De La Ossa, would involve a Russian-Turkish agreement to cram three million refugees into a tiny slice of Idlib in what would amount to sub-human conditions. Said De La Ossa: “The humanitarian catastrophe that is Idlib has shown that the lessons from the beginning of World War II still apply: Appeasing dictators who are willing to kill massive numbers of people to realise their delusions of grandeur never works. But if the US, Europe, and the international community at large fail to heed these lessons, it will not only be Syrians who pay the price. “ (Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are the personal views of the author and do not reflect the views of ZMCL)

War threatens to spill beyond Syria’s borders

UK and France signed an agreement worth $74 million to ramp up efforts to stop illegal migrants from making perilous journeys across the English Channel

UK and France sign deal on migrant crossings

The United Kingdom Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Wednesday (November 2) defended how his&nbsp;government handled Channel migrants. Sunak's remarks come amid building tensions to address the deteriorating conditions at a processing centre in southeast England.&nbsp;

The UK prime minister did admit that not enough asylum claims are being processed, but he promised to fix the system, stating channel crossings were a 'serious and escalating problem.'

Sunak noted that his government is taking "significant action" in order to improve conditions at a site for handling asylum seekers in Manston in Kent. It is the same place which was described last week as "pretty wretched" by David Neal, who is the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration.&nbsp;

ALSO READ |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/is-uk-government-working-on-war-gamed-emergency-plans-to-cope-with-energy-blackouts-530599">Is UK government working on 'war gamed' emergency plans to tackle energy blackouts?</a>&nbsp;

While speaking at prime minister's questions in the House of Commons, Sunak responded to questions from Sir Keir Starmer as the Labour leader accused the government they have lost control, and also asked to replace Suella Braverman with a "proper home secretary".&nbsp;

Mentioning all the steps taken by the government, Sunak highlighted that since September 30 there are more hotels with four and a half thousand new beds, he said a senior general to control the situation at Manston has been appointed, and also increased the number of staff there.&nbsp;

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"These are significant steps to demonstrate that we are getting a grip on this system. But this is a serious and escalating problem. We will make sure that we control our borders, and we will always do it fairly and compassionately because that's the right thing," said Sunak.&nbsp;

Reports suggest that over 4,000 people stay at the centre, but in fact, the unit can only hold just 1,600 when it was built but the numbers have increased to more than double that.&nbsp;

ALSO READ |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/gchq-mi5and-mi6-alter-hiring-rules-will-recruit-non-british-parentage-spies-530470">UK PM Rishi Sunak is looking to close the Confucius Institutes, says security minister</a>&nbsp;

Last week, Sunak's office said he had discussed the issue of clandestine migration across the Channel with French President Emmanuel Macron. A record number of nearly 40,000 asylum seekers have arrived in Britain via small boats so far this year.&nbsp;

Sunak said that an "unprecedented" amount of people are arriving in the UK illegally. Slamming the Opposition, Sunak said that Labour opposes every measure the government has put through. He said that it is "not serious about this problem".&nbsp;

(With inputs from agencies)&nbsp;

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The United Kingdom Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Wednesday (November 2) defended how his government handled Channel migrants. Sunak's remarks come amid building tensions to address the deteriorating conditions at a processing centre in southeast England.

The United Kingdom Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Wednesday (November 2) defended how his government handled Channel migrants. Sunak's remarks come amid building tensions to address the deteriorating conditions at a processing centre in southeast England. The UK prime minister did admit that not enough asylum claims are being processed, but he promised to fix the system, stating channel crossings were a 'serious and escalating problem.' Sunak noted that his government is taking "significant action" in order to improve conditions at a site for handling asylum seekers in Manston in Kent. It is the same place which was described last week as "pretty wretched" by David Neal, who is the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration. ALSO READ | Is UK government working on 'war gamed' emergency plans to tackle energy blackouts? While speaking at prime minister's questions in the House of Commons, Sunak responded to questions from Sir Keir Starmer as the Labour leader accused the government they have lost control, and also asked to replace Suella Braverman with a "proper home secretary". Mentioning all the steps taken by the government, Sunak highlighted that since September 30 there are more hotels with four and a half thousand new beds, he said a senior general to control the situation at Manston has been appointed, and also increased the number of staff there. × "These are significant steps to demonstrate that we are getting a grip on this system. But this is a serious and escalating problem. We will make sure that we control our borders, and we will always do it fairly and compassionately because that's the right thing," said Sunak. Reports suggest that over 4,000 people stay at the centre, but in fact, the unit can only hold just 1,600 when it was built but the numbers have increased to more than double that. ALSO READ | UK PM Rishi Sunak is looking to close the Confucius Institutes, says security minister Last week, Sunak's office said he had discussed the issue of clandestine migration across the Channel with French President Emmanuel Macron. A record number of nearly 40,000 asylum seekers have arrived in Britain via small boats so far this year. Sunak said that an "unprecedented" amount of people are arriving in the UK illegally. Slamming the Opposition, Sunak said that Labour opposes every measure the government has put through. He said that it is "not serious about this problem". (With inputs from agencies) WATCH WION LIVE HERE You can now write for wionews.com and be a part of the community. Share your stories and opinions with us here.

Rishi Sunak defends UK government's handling of channel migrants, asylum claims

Eric Adams, the mayor of New York City, has declared a state of emergency in response to a "crisis situation" brought on by an inflow of migrants.

Since April, more than 17,000 people have entered the city from the southern border.

Recent months have seen a migration of people from Republican states like Texas, Arizona, and Florida to Democratic regions.

As record numbers of individuals cross into the US from Mexico, there has been a dispute with the White House about it.

At a press conference on Friday, Adams stated that since September, an average of five to six buses have been arriving in the city each day. According to him, one out of every five residents of the city's shelter system is currently looking for refuge.

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/us-new-york-university-fires-chemistry-teacher-after-students-file-petition-saying-his-class-was-too-hard-523268">New York University fires chemistry teacher after students petition saying his class was too hard</a>

Many of those coming are families with <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/uvalde-school-district-suspends-full-police-department-months-after-shooting-523426">children in school</a> and are in urgent need of medical attention, he said.

The mayor is requesting federal and state assistance to help with the bills because the surge is expected to cost New York $1 billion (£900 million) this fiscal year, as reported by BBC.&nbsp;

"New Yorkers are angry," said Mayor Adams. "I am angry too. We have not asked for this. There was never any agreement to take on the job of supporting thousands of asylum seekers."

He added: "The city is going to run out of funding for other priorities. New York City is doing all we can, but we are reaching the outer limit of our ability to help."

He continued, "Others are exploiting the city's social services for political benefit."

Texas, Arizona, and Florida are the three states that have sent migrants to districts with a Democratic majority, concentrating on so-called "sanctuary" communities that don't cooperate with federal immigration officials.

Republican authorities in border areas claim the strategy aims to lessen the effects of immigration flows.

Additionally, they claim that the proposal is intended to put more pressure on <a href="https://www.wionews.com/videos/joe-biden-announces-steps-to-overhaul-us-policy-on-marijuana-523189">President Joe Biden's administration</a> to take additional steps to curb the record-breaking number of migrants entering the US through the southern border this year.

WATCH WION LIVE HERE:

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Eric Adams, the mayor of New York City, has declared a state of emergency in response to a "crisis situation" brought on by an inflow of migrants. Since April, more than 17,000 people have entered the city from the southern border.

Eric Adams, the mayor of New York City, has declared a state of emergency in response to a "crisis situation" brought on by an inflow of migrants. Since April, more than 17,000 people have entered the city from the southern border. Recent months have seen a migration of people from Republican states like Texas, Arizona, and Florida to Democratic regions. As record numbers of individuals cross into the US from Mexico, there has been a dispute with the White House about it. At a press conference on Friday, Adams stated that since September, an average of five to six buses have been arriving in the city each day. According to him, one out of every five residents of the city's shelter system is currently looking for refuge. Also read | New York University fires chemistry teacher after students petition saying his class was too hard Many of those coming are families with children in school and are in urgent need of medical attention, he said. The mayor is requesting federal and state assistance to help with the bills because the surge is expected to cost New York $1 billion (£900 million) this fiscal year, as reported by BBC. "New Yorkers are angry," said Mayor Adams. "I am angry too. We have not asked for this. There was never any agreement to take on the job of supporting thousands of asylum seekers." He added: "The city is going to run out of funding for other priorities. New York City is doing all we can, but we are reaching the outer limit of our ability to help." He continued, "Others are exploiting the city's social services for political benefit." Texas, Arizona, and Florida are the three states that have sent migrants to districts with a Democratic majority, concentrating on so-called "sanctuary" communities that don't cooperate with federal immigration officials. Republican authorities in border areas claim the strategy aims to lessen the effects of immigration flows. Additionally, they claim that the proposal is intended to put more pressure on President Joe Biden's administration to take additional steps to curb the record-breaking number of migrants entering the US through the southern border this year. WATCH WION LIVE HERE:

Migrant 'crisis' prompts New York City to declare emergency

New York City Mayor Eric Adams declared a state of emergency Friday in response to the continued arrival of illegal migrants from southern states.

NYC Mayor Eric Adams declares state of emergency amid migrant busing crisis

For the second time this week, a bus from Texas dropped down roughly 50 migrants outside Vice President Kamala Harris' apartment at the Naval Observatory in Washington, DC&nbsp;on Thursday.

Many of the migrants, who included men, women, and children, informed NBC News that they were from Venezuela. They were spotted transporting their&nbsp;belongings in tiny white bags.

Victor, a young man, claimed that he travelled through "the jungle" before landing in Texas and that he was fed on the bus and treated "quite nicely." He claimed he is looking for work but does not have a specific destination in mind. The bulk of the migrants on the bus told NBC News that they also intended to travel abroad.

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/two-top-islamic-state-terrorists-killed-in-us-air-raids-conducted-in-syria-523162">Two top Islamic State terrorists killed in US air raids conducted in Syria</a>

International humanitarian nonprofit SAMU First Response had volunteers on site to help the migrants.

As Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, both Republicans running for <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/danish-government-seeks-elections-to-prevent-vote-of-no-confidence-over-mink-scandal-522887">re-election</a>, sought to use the tactic to draw attention to what they claim are the Biden administration's failed border policies, busloads of migrants started arriving in liberal strongholds without warning earlier this year. Since then, thousands of migrants have entered New York, Washington, Chicago, and other cities, causing officials in those areas to scramble to set up a support system for them.

Abbott initiated the migrant busing scheme to so-called sanctuary communities and was imitated by DeSantis, who recently chartered two flights bringing around 50 migrants from San Antonio to Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. Abbott also dispatched two buses of migrants to Harris' area last month. A class-action lawsuit has been launched by migrants who took part in the trip against DeSantis and other state officials on the grounds that they were the victims of fraud committed for political advantage.

Democratic governors whose states are impacted by the strategy have denounced Abbott and DeSantis' behaviour. Last month, after standing before the media to criticise Abbott's handling of the almost 500 <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/suella-braverman-blames-uncontrolled-migration-and-failure-to-integrate-for-leicester-violence-522990">immigrants</a> bused to Chicago, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker declared an emergency and activated the state's National Guard.

Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, also demanded that DeSantis and Abbott's acts be looked into by the Justice Department.

WATCH WION LIVE HERE:

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For the second time this week, a bus from Texas dropped down roughly 50 migrants outside Vice President Kamala Harris' apartment at the Naval Observatory in Washington, DC on Thursday.

For the second time this week, a bus from Texas dropped down roughly 50 migrants outside Vice President Kamala Harris' apartment at the Naval Observatory in Washington, DC on Thursday. Many of the migrants, who included men, women, and children, informed NBC News that they were from Venezuela. They were spotted transporting their belongings in tiny white bags. Victor, a young man, claimed that he travelled through "the jungle" before landing in Texas and that he was fed on the bus and treated "quite nicely." He claimed he is looking for work but does not have a specific destination in mind. The bulk of the migrants on the bus told NBC News that they also intended to travel abroad. Also read | Two top Islamic State terrorists killed in US air raids conducted in Syria International humanitarian nonprofit SAMU First Response had volunteers on site to help the migrants. As Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, both Republicans running for re-election, sought to use the tactic to draw attention to what they claim are the Biden administration's failed border policies, busloads of migrants started arriving in liberal strongholds without warning earlier this year. Since then, thousands of migrants have entered New York, Washington, Chicago, and other cities, causing officials in those areas to scramble to set up a support system for them. Abbott initiated the migrant busing scheme to so-called sanctuary communities and was imitated by DeSantis, who recently chartered two flights bringing around 50 migrants from San Antonio to Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. Abbott also dispatched two buses of migrants to Harris' area last month. A class-action lawsuit has been launched by migrants who took part in the trip against DeSantis and other state officials on the grounds that they were the victims of fraud committed for political advantage. Democratic governors whose states are impacted by the strategy have denounced Abbott and DeSantis' behaviour. Last month, after standing before the media to criticise Abbott's handling of the almost 500 immigrants bused to Chicago, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker declared an emergency and activated the state's National Guard. Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, also demanded that DeSantis and Abbott's acts be looked into by the Justice Department. WATCH WION LIVE HERE:

US: Bus carrying migrants arrives outside Kamala Harris' residence again

The Joe Biden administration on Monday released data that shows the number of migrant arrests along the US-Mexico border had crossed the two million mark in the first 11 months of the 2022 fiscal year that ends on September 30.

The Joe Biden administration on Monday released data that shows the number of migrant arrests along the US-Mexico border had crossed the two million mark in the first 11 months of the 2022 fiscal year that ends on September 30. This is the first time that such a threshold has been eclipsed. Reportedly, in the month of August alone, the US Customs and Border Protection arrested over 200,000 migrants, taking the total to 2.3 million. Comparatively, the tally for last year stood at 1.7 million. According to data, the record high is driven by unprecedented levels of migration from countries like Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. In August, the illegal aliens from the aforementioned countries made up over a third of the total border apprehensions. According to United Nations, seven million Venezuelans have fled their homeland with 25,000 arriving at the US border in August, followed by 19,000 Cubans and nearly 12,000 Nicaraguans. Read more: Can bused, flown migrants can live in United States? Here is all you need to know Earlier, the numbers used to be dominated by migrants from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. However, after the pandemic, the demography of migrants has completely changed. Explaining the rationale behind the 175 percent increase in migration compared to the same period last year, Chris Magnus, commissioner, Customs and Border Protection said: “Failing communist regimes in Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba are driving a new wave of migration across the Western Hemisphere, including the recent increase in encounters at the southwest US border.” In pics: Thousands of migrants in Mexico head to US border coinciding with Americas summit As the November midterm election draws closer, the Biden administration is facing flak from all quarters for its rather tame policy on dealing with illegal migrants. The Republicans have grown restive over the reluctance of the Democrat regime in the White Huse and thus, they have taken matters into their own hands to make their voices heard. For months, the Republican states are sending migrants via buses and airplanes to the stronghold states of Democrats. As reported by WION, last week Florida's Ron DeSantis flew about 50 Venezuelans to the small, upscale island of Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts. During the weekend, Texas' Greg Abbott bused more migrants to Vice President Kamala Harris' Washington home. (With inputs from agencies) WATCH WION LIVE HERE:

US arrests over 2 million migrants along the Mexico border, breaking previous record

According to the latest figures, over 18,000 migrants have already crossed the UK border and the numbers are expected to rise even further in the coming months due to warm weather and calm winds at the sea.

UK government faces flak for attending to migrant crisis

Belarus envoy to India Andrei Rzheussky has dismissed allegations that his country pushed migrants towards Poland and Lithuania saying "we did not provoke this crisis". &nbsp;&nbsp;

The migrant crisis at the border between Belarus on one side and Poland and three Baltic countries Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia on the other side has seen influx of thousands of migrants, most from countries like Iraq. The development has further worsened the already troubled ties between Minsk and its western neighbours. &nbsp;&nbsp;

Speaking to our diplomatic correspondent Sidhant Sibal, Envoy Andrei Rzheussky, said, "Belarus as a transit country was on the way to western world...We did not provoke this crisis because people were trying to get better life in western countries". &nbsp;&nbsp;

Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has called on to end ‘appalling’ Belarus-Poland border crisis. &nbsp;

The envoy also said "a lot of misunderstanding happened especially with neighbouring countries" due to the "presidential elections..which were not recognised" but "it's a decision of our country and we are trying to convince them that sanctions and coercive measures taken towards Belarus is not right approach". &nbsp;&nbsp;

Sanctions have been imposed by the EU on Belarus due to "continued repression of civil society, democratic opposition, independent media outlets and journalists," EU said in a statement earlier this month. The December announcement of sanctions by the EU is the fifth package of sanctions against the country. &nbsp;

&nbsp;&nbsp;

Sidhant Sibal:&nbsp;What has happened at the border between your country and countries like Poland and Lithuania. &nbsp;&nbsp;

Andrei Rzheussky: There has been a lot of speculation from Poland, Lithuania and other countries. First of all, we did not provoke this crisis, we also suffered from what happened on our border. Lot of people were trying to flee war, economic crisis in their own countries. They were headed to the western countries in the search for a better life. Belarus was just a transit country on the way to western world. Numerous people gathered on the border between Belarus and its neighbouring countries, such as Poland, Lithuania and Latvia. We did our best to help the people when Poland, Lithuania and Latvia pushed them away. We provided temporary shelter to migrants along with food. Truely speaking, the problem is with western countries, primary Poland and Lithuania did not fulfil obligations under refugee convention of 1951 as they did not allow migrants to cross over to their country. So, the crisis happened. We could not convince western countries to full obligations. A lot of things happened on the border. Poland used force in the form of water cannons against the people. Several people, including reporters suffered a lot at the border. &nbsp;&nbsp;

&nbsp;

Sidhant Sibal:&nbsp;Has this situation occurred in past? Are you in conversation with neighbours to solve this issue? &nbsp;

Andrei Rzheussky: From the beginning, we tried to apprise Poland and Lithuania about the situation. We said that it is necessary to sit on the table and find a solution. But unfortunately, we did not get any reply from these countries. It is not the right kind of approach taken by these countries. Before the middle of this year, there was huge cooperation on borders, a lot of projects were going on with western countries like Poland and Lithuania. There were joint programmes on how to prevent illegal immigration. But unfortunately, this programme was shut down and Belarus alone cannot stop the flow. &nbsp;

&nbsp;&nbsp;

Sidhant Sibal:&nbsp;How did these migrants end up in Belarus. West has been saying migrants are being pushed by your country because of the sanctions that have been imposed on your government. &nbsp;

Andrei Rzheussky: At this moment, we are trying to convince people to return to home countries, some of them agreed for that. As I know some aircrafts have left for countries like Iraq and Syria. As I know, 600-700 people are in temporary camps on the border raised by our government. They are still thinking whether to stay in Belarus or return to home country. All requests for asylum in Belarus will also be considered in a proper way. But majority of the people would like to go to western countries or stay in Belarus. &nbsp;&nbsp;

&nbsp;&nbsp;

Sidhant Sibal:&nbsp;So, you dismiss the allegations of weaponisation of migrants? &nbsp;&nbsp;

Andrei Rzheussky: This is an absolute lie. Migrants always want to go to the western countries. The flow through to Belarus is quite less compared to through Italy or any other country. The migrant flow has been constant but we managed to control it by making joint efforts along with western countries who participated in this programme. At the moment, programme has stopped and we cannot do anything to stop people. So, the crisis happened. &nbsp;&nbsp;

&nbsp; &nbsp;

Sidhant Sibal:&nbsp;In London, one of your diplomats has been attacked. &nbsp;

Andrei Rzheussky: As I know from official information, on December 19, the wall of our embassy building was damaged when two diplomats had arrived. In the incident, a diplomat was seriously injured. The person suffered broken nose. Police have arrested the person, who injured our diplomat. The accused was a member of an immigrants' group. As far as I know, CdA of British Embassy in Minsk was called to foreign ministry and a note of protest was given to him with a request to find out what happened and take proper action against the culprits. A criminal case has been registered and investigation is underway. &nbsp;&nbsp;

&nbsp;&nbsp;

Sidhant Sibal:&nbsp;But it seems Belarus and its neighbours are heading towards a difficult situation. How can this be solved? &nbsp;

Andrei Rzheussky: Look, Belarus is a peaceful country and we always conducted ourselves in this way. We have always suggested diplomatic solution for every dispute. It is not our fault as a lot of misunderstanding happened from neighbouring countries. The main reason of this is that results of the presidential elections were not recognised by our neighbouring countries as well as many western nations. But this decision was important for our nation. A result is a result and 80% votes were won by our president and its official. We have been trying to convince them that sanctions and coercive measures taken towards Belarus is not the right approach. Sanctions are a deadlock and will never give any positive result. Western countries have imposed sanctions against Belarus government due to which our people are suffering. It's a reality of life. We are trying to act wisely and not react to sanctions but we cannot ignore everything. &nbsp;&nbsp;

&nbsp;&nbsp;

Sidhant Sibal:&nbsp;What is the situation in your country over talks of referendum on the constitution, political prisoners, opposition leaving the country, etc. Is your country moving towards authoritarian rule? &nbsp;

Andrei Rzheussky: If you are talking about constitutional reforms, in February, Belorussian assembly decided that it is necessary to come up with constitutional reforms. Our president has announced it. A special constitutional commission was created. Around 77 articles have been changed along with preamble. Lot of challenges have happened. Two days ago, it was announced. Towards the beginning of this year, project will be published for decision. At the end of February, it will be put up for referendum. &nbsp;

&nbsp;&nbsp;

Sidhant Sibal:&nbsp;The West is saying that you are moving towards authoritarianism. &nbsp;&nbsp;

Andrei Rzheussky: Look, my advice is to come to Belarus and you will see it with your own eyes if there is freedom or not. We are free, absolute free. We have our own foreign policy, which is independent. Maybe it's against the plans of western countries. Due to our policy by our president, people are moving in direction where we want to go. &nbsp; &nbsp;

&nbsp;

Sidhant Sibal:&nbsp;Have you briefed India about the border situation? &nbsp;

Andrei Rzheussky: We have sent three press releases to all mediapersons, who were in contact with, think tank including Ministry of external affairs. We briefed in November and December. &nbsp;&nbsp;

&nbsp;&nbsp;

Sidhant Sibal:&nbsp;How do you see India-Belarus ties? &nbsp;

Andrei Rzheussky: We consider India as a strategic partner in this region. Our government took decision to open additional representation here, CG in Mumbai. The decision was taken in summer. We have almost open our consul general in Mumbai. We are in process of consultations and will open in new year and enhance our activity in India. We have two honorary consular generals, one in Mumbai and other in Kolkata. We have strong relations with India and have a long history since 1947. We have always supported you. We established embassy in 1992 and have good ties at every level. Our president visited India three times--1997, 2007 and 2017 and your President Mukherjee visited Belarus in 2015. Our PM visited India three times. We are working to organise visit of PM Modi to Belarus, something we are trying to do for a couple of years and I hope next year, we will manage to do this. We have projects in mining. In last 3 years, we supplied mining trucks to India. There are huge projects in oil industry. We have helped you to extract more oil from old oil drills. The project was successful. Last project had finished this year. There is cooperation in the field of culture as we gave our premises to shoot an Indian movie Squad that featured on Netflix. We have a huge facility. &nbsp;&nbsp;

Belarus envoy to India Andrei Rzheussky has dismissed allegations that his country pushed migrants towards Poland and Lithuania saying "we did not provoke this crisis".

Belarus envoy to India Andrei Rzheussky has dismissed allegations that his country pushed migrants towards Poland and Lithuania saying "we did not provoke this crisis". The migrant crisis at the border between Belarus on one side and Poland and three Baltic countries Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia on the other side has seen influx of thousands of migrants, most from countries like Iraq. The development has further worsened the already troubled ties between Minsk and its western neighbours. Speaking to our diplomatic correspondent Sidhant Sibal, Envoy Andrei Rzheussky, said, "Belarus as a transit country was on the way to western world...We did not provoke this crisis because people were trying to get better life in western countries". Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has called on to end ‘appalling’ Belarus-Poland border crisis. The envoy also said "a lot of misunderstanding happened especially with neighbouring countries" due to the "presidential elections..which were not recognised" but "it's a decision of our country and we are trying to convince them that sanctions and coercive measures taken towards Belarus is not right approach". Sanctions have been imposed by the EU on Belarus due to "continued repression of civil society, democratic opposition, independent media outlets and journalists," EU said in a statement earlier this month. The December announcement of sanctions by the EU is the fifth package of sanctions against the country. Sidhant Sibal: What has happened at the border between your country and countries like Poland and Lithuania. Andrei Rzheussky: There has been a lot of speculation from Poland, Lithuania and other countries. First of all, we did not provoke this crisis, we also suffered from what happened on our border. Lot of people were trying to flee war, economic crisis in their own countries. They were headed to the western countries in the search for a better life. Belarus was just a transit country on the way to western world. Numerous people gathered on the border between Belarus and its neighbouring countries, such as Poland, Lithuania and Latvia. We did our best to help the people when Poland, Lithuania and Latvia pushed them away. We provided temporary shelter to migrants along with food. Truely speaking, the problem is with western countries, primary Poland and Lithuania did not fulfil obligations under refugee convention of 1951 as they did not allow migrants to cross over to their country. So, the crisis happened. We could not convince western countries to full obligations. A lot of things happened on the border. Poland used force in the form of water cannons against the people. Several people, including reporters suffered a lot at the border. Sidhant Sibal: Has this situation occurred in past? Are you in conversation with neighbours to solve this issue? Andrei Rzheussky: From the beginning, we tried to apprise Poland and Lithuania about the situation. We said that it is necessary to sit on the table and find a solution. But unfortunately, we did not get any reply from these countries. It is not the right kind of approach taken by these countries. Before the middle of this year, there was huge cooperation on borders, a lot of projects were going on with western countries like Poland and Lithuania. There were joint programmes on how to prevent illegal immigration. But unfortunately, this programme was shut down and Belarus alone cannot stop the flow. Sidhant Sibal: How did these migrants end up in Belarus. West has been saying migrants are being pushed by your country because of the sanctions that have been imposed on your government. Andrei Rzheussky: At this moment, we are trying to convince people to return to home countries, some of them agreed for that. As I know some aircrafts have left for countries like Iraq and Syria. As I know, 600-700 people are in temporary camps on the border raised by our government. They are still thinking whether to stay in Belarus or return to home country. All requests for asylum in Belarus will also be considered in a proper way. But majority of the people would like to go to western countries or stay in Belarus. Sidhant Sibal: So, you dismiss the allegations of weaponisation of migrants? Andrei Rzheussky: This is an absolute lie. Migrants always want to go to the western countries. The flow through to Belarus is quite less compared to through Italy or any other country. The migrant flow has been constant but we managed to control it by making joint efforts along with western countries who participated in this programme. At the moment, programme has stopped and we cannot do anything to stop people. So, the crisis happened. Sidhant Sibal: In London, one of your diplomats has been attacked. Andrei Rzheussky: As I know from official information, on December 19, the wall of our embassy building was damaged when two diplomats had arrived. In the incident, a diplomat was seriously injured. The person suffered broken nose. Police have arrested the person, who injured our diplomat. The accused was a member of an immigrants' group. As far as I know, CdA of British Embassy in Minsk was called to foreign ministry and a note of protest was given to him with a request to find out what happened and take proper action against the culprits. A criminal case has been registered and investigation is underway. Sidhant Sibal: But it seems Belarus and its neighbours are heading towards a difficult situation. How can this be solved? Andrei Rzheussky: Look, Belarus is a peaceful country and we always conducted ourselves in this way. We have always suggested diplomatic solution for every dispute. It is not our fault as a lot of misunderstanding happened from neighbouring countries. The main reason of this is that results of the presidential elections were not recognised by our neighbouring countries as well as many western nations. But this decision was important for our nation. A result is a result and 80% votes were won by our president and its official. We have been trying to convince them that sanctions and coercive measures taken towards Belarus is not the right approach. Sanctions are a deadlock and will never give any positive result. Western countries have imposed sanctions against Belarus government due to which our people are suffering. It's a reality of life. We are trying to act wisely and not react to sanctions but we cannot ignore everything. Sidhant Sibal: What is the situation in your country over talks of referendum on the constitution, political prisoners, opposition leaving the country, etc. Is your country moving towards authoritarian rule? Andrei Rzheussky: If you are talking about constitutional reforms, in February, Belorussian assembly decided that it is necessary to come up with constitutional reforms. Our president has announced it. A special constitutional commission was created. Around 77 articles have been changed along with preamble. Lot of challenges have happened. Two days ago, it was announced. Towards the beginning of this year, project will be published for decision. At the end of February, it will be put up for referendum. Sidhant Sibal: The West is saying that you are moving towards authoritarianism. Andrei Rzheussky: Look, my advice is to come to Belarus and you will see it with your own eyes if there is freedom or not. We are free, absolute free. We have our own foreign policy, which is independent. Maybe it's against the plans of western countries. Due to our policy by our president, people are moving in direction where we want to go. Sidhant Sibal: Have you briefed India about the border situation? Andrei Rzheussky: We have sent three press releases to all mediapersons, who were in contact with, think tank including Ministry of external affairs. We briefed in November and December. Sidhant Sibal: How do you see India-Belarus ties? Andrei Rzheussky: We consider India as a strategic partner in this region. Our government took decision to open additional representation here, CG in Mumbai. The decision was taken in summer. We have almost open our consul general in Mumbai. We are in process of consultations and will open in new year and enhance our activity in India. We have two honorary consular generals, one in Mumbai and other in Kolkata. We have strong relations with India and have a long history since 1947. We have always supported you. We established embassy in 1992 and have good ties at every level. Our president visited India three times--1997, 2007 and 2017 and your President Mukherjee visited Belarus in 2015. Our PM visited India three times. We are working to organise visit of PM Modi to Belarus, something we are trying to do for a couple of years and I hope next year, we will manage to do this. We have projects in mining. In last 3 years, we supplied mining trucks to India. There are huge projects in oil industry. We have helped you to extract more oil from old oil drills. The project was successful. Last project had finished this year. There is cooperation in the field of culture as we gave our premises to shoot an Indian movie Squad that featured on Netflix. We have a huge facility.

Belarus envoy dismisses allegations of migrants being pushed into EU

The Taliban regime appealed for international help to combat a deepening economic crisis that has fueled fears of another refugee exodus from Afghanistan.

Afghanistan: Taliban leaders appeal for help as migrant crisis looms

Pope Francis arrived in Cyprus on Thursday, beginning a five-day trip that would also bring him to Greece and its island of Lesbos, where in 2016 he made a defining visit to refugees living in horrid conditions and brought some back to Rome on his plane.

The trip, the 35th abroad for Francis, who turns 85 later this month, reflects his determination to maintain a global focus on the plight of migrants and lands torn by strife, despite the world’s preoccupation this week with the omicron variant of the coronavirus.

His journey will include other hallmarks of the Francis papacy, including encouraging tiny Catholic minorities and reaching out to other religious leaders, this time in the Greek Orthodox Church. He is expected to help relocate to Italy some migrants in Cyprus — and possibly Lesbos again — this time.

“Europe cannot ignore the Mediterranean Sea that hosted the spread of the Gospel and the development of great civilizations,” Francis said in a video message before the trip. He lamented the sea becoming a “great cemetery” and said that in the age of the pandemic and climate change, it was imperative to “sail together, and not to split up by going our separate ways.”

The trip is the third this year for the pope, who is believed to have received a booster shot, though that has not been confirmed. He made a historic pilgrimage to Iraq in March and a politically symbolic trip to Hungary and Slovakia in September during which he appeared to speak out against nationalism.

This trip, which refocuses attention on the priorities of his pontificate, including opening borders and welcoming the destitute, comes as migrants are again facing awful conditions and tragic deaths, including at the Belarus-Poland border and in the English Channel, where at least 27 people died last week. But it also comes at an unpredictable and deeply concerning phase of the pandemic as countries around the world shut their borders to try to protect their populations from a variant whose effects are still very much unknown.

“The recommendation in general is prudence,” Matteo Bruni, the Vatican spokesperson, said when asked about coronavirus precautions and worries that the new variant would eclipse the main themes of the trip.

Francis is the second pope, after his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, to visit Cyprus, and Thursday he will meet with local Catholic priests and the president and diplomats in Nicosia, the capital. On Friday, he will visit with the Orthodox archbishop and celebrate a holy Mass at an outdoor stadium.

He will end the day with a prayer at a parish church with migrants, and the Vatican has arranged to have about 50 migrants relocated to Italy.

Francis will stay at a Franciscan monastery in Nicosia — the divided capital of Cyprus. The medieval city is separated by a U.N.-protected buffer zone.

He will then spend Saturday reaching out to Orthodox leaders and meeting with officials before travelling on Sunday to Lesbos, which Bruni said had “become a symbolic place.”

Bruni said that the Cyprus visit would allow Francis to underline key themes of his pontificate, as it had over the centuries been “Europe’s outermost border to the Middle East, a laboratory of coexistence and a land of encounter with orthodoxy.”

Still, Cyprus is far from a tranquil place.

With Turkey to the north, Syria to the East, Israel to the South and Greece to the West, Cyprus is a small, stingray-shaped island between worlds and a crossroads for cultures and migrations.

The country has effectively been partitioned since 1974, with its Greek and Turkish communities — and its capital, Nicosia — separated by a buffer zone known as the Green Line.

The internationally recognized government of the Republic of Cyprus controls only the southern two-thirds of it, and the remaining third is the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, recognized only by Turkey.

Cyprus joined the European Union in 2004, but the island is still divided along ethnic lines. Unification efforts start and stop periodically, most recently in 2017, but the talks broke down over Turkey’s refusal to remove its troops. They led to Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, declaring, “Turkey will be in Cyprus forever,” and rejecting a unified federation.

A recent uptick in migrant arrivals has intensified hard-right, nationalist sentiment and the resistance of the Republic of Cyprus government, which has appealed to the European Union for permission to stop processing asylum requests. But the spike in numbers, and suspicions that Turkey is funnelling the migrants to the border, have deepened the animosity between the north and the south.

Nearly 80% of the island’s population is Orthodox Christian, and about 20% is Sunni Muslim. There is only a tiny population of Catholics, about 38,000, who mostly fall under the jurisdiction of the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem and who trace their roots to the Crusades. That is less than the estimated number of Turkish troops based in the north.

Rev. Georgios Armand Houry, a Cypriot priest, said that many Catholics were hoping that the pope would help members of the faith “return home” to uninhabited towns after displacement earlier during the conflict.

During Benedict’s 2010 trip, Archbishop Chrysostomos II, the leader of the Orthodox Church of Cyprus, accused Turkey of an “obscure plan” to take over the entire island and called for the pope’s “active cooperation” in resolving the long-standing dispute.

The north continues to use the Turkish lira and has an economy closely tied to the Turkish mainland.

In recent years, tensions have risen after the discovery of rich natural gas deposits under the eastern Mediterranean. Greece, with its islands scattered in the area, claims that it has sole drilling rights. The potential for enormous wealth from the deposits has created a profit-sharing unity among surrounding nations, including Greece, Israel, Israel, Egypt, Italy and Jordan.

But Turkey has used northern Cyprus as its toehold, sending drilling ships, accompanied by warships, to explore for gas off Cyprus; that, in turn, has prompted retribution by the European Union against Turkish companies. The prospect of a clash between Greece and Turkey, two NATO allies with centuries of bad blood, has proved worrying.

“It’s a wound that has been open for some time,” Bruni said. “The Holy See undoubtedly supports every effort to strengthen bilateral talks, which are the only solution for the island and its people.” He suggested Francis would indirectly take those issues on, saying that he would touch on environmental themes by speaking of the horrible fires that burned Greece’s forests this summer but also “the exploitation of the seabed.”

Cyprus is an ancient Christian land. Tradition holds that St. Paul arrived here around A.D. 46 to preach the Gospel with Barnabas, a Cypriot and a saint.

Francis, in his video message, said he would come “in the footsteps of the first great missionaries,” and for the chance “to drink from the ancient wellsprings of Europe: Cyprus, the outpost of the Holy Land on the continent; Greece, the home of classical culture.”

Pope Francis arrived in Cyprus on Thursday, beginning a five-day trip that would also bring him to Greece and its island of Lesbos, where in 2016 he made a defining visit to refugees living in horrid conditions and brought some back to Rome on his plane.

Pope Francis arrived in Cyprus on Thursday, beginning a five-day trip that would also bring him to Greece and its island of Lesbos, where in 2016 he made a defining visit to refugees living in horrid conditions and brought some back to Rome on his plane. The trip, the 35th abroad for Francis, who turns 85 later this month, reflects his determination to maintain a global focus on the plight of migrants and lands torn by strife, despite the world’s preoccupation this week with the omicron variant of the coronavirus. His journey will include other hallmarks of the Francis papacy, including encouraging tiny Catholic minorities and reaching out to other religious leaders, this time in the Greek Orthodox Church. He is expected to help relocate to Italy some migrants in Cyprus — and possibly Lesbos again — this time. “Europe cannot ignore the Mediterranean Sea that hosted the spread of the Gospel and the development of great civilizations,” Francis said in a video message before the trip. He lamented the sea becoming a “great cemetery” and said that in the age of the pandemic and climate change, it was imperative to “sail together, and not to split up by going our separate ways.” The trip is the third this year for the pope, who is believed to have received a booster shot, though that has not been confirmed. He made a historic pilgrimage to Iraq in March and a politically symbolic trip to Hungary and Slovakia in September during which he appeared to speak out against nationalism. This trip, which refocuses attention on the priorities of his pontificate, including opening borders and welcoming the destitute, comes as migrants are again facing awful conditions and tragic deaths, including at the Belarus-Poland border and in the English Channel, where at least 27 people died last week. But it also comes at an unpredictable and deeply concerning phase of the pandemic as countries around the world shut their borders to try to protect their populations from a variant whose effects are still very much unknown. “The recommendation in general is prudence,” Matteo Bruni, the Vatican spokesperson, said when asked about coronavirus precautions and worries that the new variant would eclipse the main themes of the trip. Francis is the second pope, after his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, to visit Cyprus, and Thursday he will meet with local Catholic priests and the president and diplomats in Nicosia, the capital. On Friday, he will visit with the Orthodox archbishop and celebrate a holy Mass at an outdoor stadium. He will end the day with a prayer at a parish church with migrants, and the Vatican has arranged to have about 50 migrants relocated to Italy. Francis will stay at a Franciscan monastery in Nicosia — the divided capital of Cyprus. The medieval city is separated by a U.N.-protected buffer zone. He will then spend Saturday reaching out to Orthodox leaders and meeting with officials before travelling on Sunday to Lesbos, which Bruni said had “become a symbolic place.” Bruni said that the Cyprus visit would allow Francis to underline key themes of his pontificate, as it had over the centuries been “Europe’s outermost border to the Middle East, a laboratory of coexistence and a land of encounter with orthodoxy.” Still, Cyprus is far from a tranquil place. With Turkey to the north, Syria to the East, Israel to the South and Greece to the West, Cyprus is a small, stingray-shaped island between worlds and a crossroads for cultures and migrations. The country has effectively been partitioned since 1974, with its Greek and Turkish communities — and its capital, Nicosia — separated by a buffer zone known as the Green Line. The internationally recognized government of the Republic of Cyprus controls only the southern two-thirds of it, and the remaining third is the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, recognized only by Turkey. Cyprus joined the European Union in 2004, but the island is still divided along ethnic lines. Unification efforts start and stop periodically, most recently in 2017, but the talks broke down over Turkey’s refusal to remove its troops. They led to Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, declaring, “Turkey will be in Cyprus forever,” and rejecting a unified federation. A recent uptick in migrant arrivals has intensified hard-right, nationalist sentiment and the resistance of the Republic of Cyprus government, which has appealed to the European Union for permission to stop processing asylum requests. But the spike in numbers, and suspicions that Turkey is funnelling the migrants to the border, have deepened the animosity between the north and the south. Nearly 80% of the island’s population is Orthodox Christian, and about 20% is Sunni Muslim. There is only a tiny population of Catholics, about 38,000, who mostly fall under the jurisdiction of the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem and who trace their roots to the Crusades. That is less than the estimated number of Turkish troops based in the north. Rev. Georgios Armand Houry, a Cypriot priest, said that many Catholics were hoping that the pope would help members of the faith “return home” to uninhabited towns after displacement earlier during the conflict. During Benedict’s 2010 trip, Archbishop Chrysostomos II, the leader of the Orthodox Church of Cyprus, accused Turkey of an “obscure plan” to take over the entire island and called for the pope’s “active cooperation” in resolving the long-standing dispute. The north continues to use the Turkish lira and has an economy closely tied to the Turkish mainland. In recent years, tensions have risen after the discovery of rich natural gas deposits under the eastern Mediterranean. Greece, with its islands scattered in the area, claims that it has sole drilling rights. The potential for enormous wealth from the deposits has created a profit-sharing unity among surrounding nations, including Greece, Israel, Israel, Egypt, Italy and Jordan. But Turkey has used northern Cyprus as its toehold, sending drilling ships, accompanied by warships, to explore for gas off Cyprus; that, in turn, has prompted retribution by the European Union against Turkish companies. The prospect of a clash between Greece and Turkey, two NATO allies with centuries of bad blood, has proved worrying. “It’s a wound that has been open for some time,” Bruni said. “The Holy See undoubtedly supports every effort to strengthen bilateral talks, which are the only solution for the island and its people.” He suggested Francis would indirectly take those issues on, saying that he would touch on environmental themes by speaking of the horrible fires that burned Greece’s forests this summer but also “the exploitation of the seabed.” Cyprus is an ancient Christian land. Tradition holds that St. Paul arrived here around A.D. 46 to preach the Gospel with Barnabas, a Cypriot and a saint. Francis, in his video message, said he would come “in the footsteps of the first great missionaries,” and for the chance “to drink from the ancient wellsprings of Europe: Cyprus, the outpost of the Holy Land on the continent; Greece, the home of classical culture.”

Pope Francis heads to Cyprus, aiming to highlight plight of migrants

As temperatures are dropping to unbearable degrees, France is witnessing an anti-cyclone which is a weather system with high atmospheric pressure at its center. The colder weather is further posing a greater risk to the health of the migrants who are living in makeshift camps.

France: Migrants battle cold weather after a difficult journey

On Wednesday 27 migrants died when their dinghy capsized as they made a perilous crossing of the English Channel. British and French officials have already started trading the blame.

Worst migrant crossing disaster in English Channel, 27 migrants killed

It was cold in Belarus, bitterly cold, but at least it offered hope, however illusory.

Nazar Shamsaldin was one of thousands of Iraqis who made their way to the Eastern European country in recent months, hoping it would prove a jumping-off point to new lives in the West, only to become pawns in a geopolitical game.

But this weekend he was back in Iraq, sitting on the cold floor of a tiny unfinished concrete house, newly deported from Belarus. Nearby a small boy, one of a dozen children crammed into the house, was trying to warm his hands over a single, battered kerosene heater.

Shamsaldin, a laborer, and 35 of his relatives had risked everything to travel West. Like many of the hundreds of other Iraqis deported last week, they are now deep in debt and despair.

The Iraqis are at the heart of a crisis that erupted after Belarus loosened its visa rules this summer, luring migrants but then pushing them across borders to punish the European Union for imposing sanctions against the autocratic Belarusian president.

Once in Belarus, many of the migrant families were abandoned in deep forests with no shelter, food or water, sometimes thrust into dangerous confrontations as they tried to make it into Poland, Lithuania or Latvia, all members of the European Union.

“A Belarusian police officer pointed a pistol at my head, so I had to go back to Lithuania,” said Shamsaldin, 24, who had three small children with him. “In Lithuania, the commandos had guns pointed at me and told me, ‘If you don’t go back, we will kill you.’”

He got the message.

On Thursday, Shamsaldin returned with his family on an Iraqi Airways flight evacuating 431 migrants from Minsk, the capital of Belarus.

Several thousand other migrants remain in Belarus near the border. They are mostly Iraqi Kurds, like Shamsaldin, as well as Iraqi Arabs, Syrians, Yemenis and even some Cubans. But with their usefulness to Belarus diminished, the now-penniless Iraqi migrants are being deported.

Most are traumatized. Some have lingering injuries.

“The Belarusians beat us with sticks, but the Lithuanians attacked us with sticks and tasers,” said Dhiab Zaydan, a cousin of Shamsaldin’s.

Zaydan, 30, had a large bandage around his leg where, he said, he was beaten with night sticks. Photographs showed his entire side to be a deep purple, which he attributed to electric shocks.

Reports of assaults at the border are common.

“People have been beaten up, and they are in distress,” said Safeen Dizayee, head of the Foreign Relations Department of the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government. “We have told these authorities that they should be treated humanely and, at least until this problem is resolved, they should be treated like normal human beings with some kind of shelter or some food.”

For many of the migrants, it was not their first attempt to leave. Shamsaldin had been trying to get to Germany, where he spent six months in 2015 before returning to Iraq to care for his sick father.

“Germany is the only country where we have experienced human rights,” he said.

Shamsaldin said that after walking for two days, he and his relatives were captured by the Belarusian police, pushed into the back of a military truck and driven to the Lithuanian border. There, they were told to cross the fence.

Once they were in Lithuania, an aid organization gave them bread and water, and medical staff assessed any injuries while a cameraman filmed the operation, they recounted. Shamsaldin’s 2-month-old son was taken to a hospital to be treated for exposure.

But once the aid organization and the cameras left, Lithuanian soldiers started using sticks and tasers, the Kurds said, trying to drive them back over the border.

Shamsaldin said he reprimanded one Lithuanian officer, telling him, “‘You destroyed our country, and now we are coming to you, and you don’t have any humanity.'”

The reference was to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, but the Lithuanian was quick to offer a correction.

“That was Poland,” he replied.

While Lithuania provided support during the U.S. occupation, Poland was part of the invading force.

Shamsaldin said he sold his car to pay $11,000 for airfare and visas for his wife and three children, which he said were issued by a Belarus travel agency. After they were stranded in the forest in Belarus, he said, a Belarusian soldier in civilian clothes demanded their last $3,000 to drive them back to Minsk.

His cousins, most of whom make $10 a day working in construction, borrowed tens of thousands of dollars and now cannot pay rent. More than a dozen children were crammed into the only living area of the two-room house. None go to school, their families unable to afford the transportation fees of about $20 per month per child.

On Thursday, another family deported from Belarus sat on the sidewalk outside the air terminal in Irbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, dazed and silent and unable even to come up with the taxi fare to return to the camp for displaced Iraqis where they had been living. They were Yazidis, members of a religious minority, many of whom still languish in camps seven years after the Islamic State group began a campaign of genocide against them.

One of the Yazidis, Naam Khalo, 56, said she, her son and her daughter-in-law had spent 24 nights in the deep forest, only to be sent back to Belarus each time they made it across the border.

To raise the $20,000 needed for the trip, Khalo said, she borrowed money and sold her gold jewelry.

“Now we don’t have anything,” she said.

In a middle-class neighborhood of Irbil, Yadgar Hussein described her own tortuous journey, which led to her deportation from Poland three weeks earlier with her children. In October, they had waded through stream of sewage, she said, and walked through the forest for days in freezing temperatures after the Belarusian police cut the border fence. But once in Poland, a driver led them into a police checkpoint, where they were arrested, with her 19-year-old son and another migrant hiding in the trunk of the car.

She still cannot sleep, she said.

“The only thing I know is my life is destroyed,” said Hussein, who was married at 14 and widowed four years later when her husband stepped on a land mine.

She is divorced from the father of her three youngest children.

Hussein says she has not given up on leaving Irbil again, perhaps next time by the perilous sea crossing from Turkey to Greece.

“If I had money, I would go by sea tomorrow for the sake of my children,” she said. “Either you die or you make it there. But nobody gets arrested.”

It was cold in Belarus, bitterly cold, but at least it offered hope, however illusory. Nazar Shamsaldin was one of thousands of Iraqis who made their way to the Eastern European country in recent months, hoping it would prove a jumping-off point to new lives in the West, only to become pawns in a geopolitical game.

It was cold in Belarus, bitterly cold, but at least it offered hope, however illusory. Nazar Shamsaldin was one of thousands of Iraqis who made their way to the Eastern European country in recent months, hoping it would prove a jumping-off point to new lives in the West, only to become pawns in a geopolitical game. But this weekend he was back in Iraq, sitting on the cold floor of a tiny unfinished concrete house, newly deported from Belarus. Nearby a small boy, one of a dozen children crammed into the house, was trying to warm his hands over a single, battered kerosene heater. Shamsaldin, a laborer, and 35 of his relatives had risked everything to travel West. Like many of the hundreds of other Iraqis deported last week, they are now deep in debt and despair. The Iraqis are at the heart of a crisis that erupted after Belarus loosened its visa rules this summer, luring migrants but then pushing them across borders to punish the European Union for imposing sanctions against the autocratic Belarusian president. Once in Belarus, many of the migrant families were abandoned in deep forests with no shelter, food or water, sometimes thrust into dangerous confrontations as they tried to make it into Poland, Lithuania or Latvia, all members of the European Union. “A Belarusian police officer pointed a pistol at my head, so I had to go back to Lithuania,” said Shamsaldin, 24, who had three small children with him. “In Lithuania, the commandos had guns pointed at me and told me, ‘If you don’t go back, we will kill you.’” He got the message. On Thursday, Shamsaldin returned with his family on an Iraqi Airways flight evacuating 431 migrants from Minsk, the capital of Belarus. Several thousand other migrants remain in Belarus near the border. They are mostly Iraqi Kurds, like Shamsaldin, as well as Iraqi Arabs, Syrians, Yemenis and even some Cubans. But with their usefulness to Belarus diminished, the now-penniless Iraqi migrants are being deported. Most are traumatized. Some have lingering injuries. “The Belarusians beat us with sticks, but the Lithuanians attacked us with sticks and tasers,” said Dhiab Zaydan, a cousin of Shamsaldin’s. Zaydan, 30, had a large bandage around his leg where, he said, he was beaten with night sticks. Photographs showed his entire side to be a deep purple, which he attributed to electric shocks. Reports of assaults at the border are common. “People have been beaten up, and they are in distress,” said Safeen Dizayee, head of the Foreign Relations Department of the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government. “We have told these authorities that they should be treated humanely and, at least until this problem is resolved, they should be treated like normal human beings with some kind of shelter or some food.” For many of the migrants, it was not their first attempt to leave. Shamsaldin had been trying to get to Germany, where he spent six months in 2015 before returning to Iraq to care for his sick father. “Germany is the only country where we have experienced human rights,” he said. Shamsaldin said that after walking for two days, he and his relatives were captured by the Belarusian police, pushed into the back of a military truck and driven to the Lithuanian border. There, they were told to cross the fence. Once they were in Lithuania, an aid organization gave them bread and water, and medical staff assessed any injuries while a cameraman filmed the operation, they recounted. Shamsaldin’s 2-month-old son was taken to a hospital to be treated for exposure. But once the aid organization and the cameras left, Lithuanian soldiers started using sticks and tasers, the Kurds said, trying to drive them back over the border. Shamsaldin said he reprimanded one Lithuanian officer, telling him, “‘You destroyed our country, and now we are coming to you, and you don’t have any humanity.'” The reference was to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, but the Lithuanian was quick to offer a correction. “That was Poland,” he replied. While Lithuania provided support during the U.S. occupation, Poland was part of the invading force. Shamsaldin said he sold his car to pay $11,000 for airfare and visas for his wife and three children, which he said were issued by a Belarus travel agency. After they were stranded in the forest in Belarus, he said, a Belarusian soldier in civilian clothes demanded their last $3,000 to drive them back to Minsk. His cousins, most of whom make $10 a day working in construction, borrowed tens of thousands of dollars and now cannot pay rent. More than a dozen children were crammed into the only living area of the two-room house. None go to school, their families unable to afford the transportation fees of about $20 per month per child. On Thursday, another family deported from Belarus sat on the sidewalk outside the air terminal in Irbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, dazed and silent and unable even to come up with the taxi fare to return to the camp for displaced Iraqis where they had been living. They were Yazidis, members of a religious minority, many of whom still languish in camps seven years after the Islamic State group began a campaign of genocide against them. One of the Yazidis, Naam Khalo, 56, said she, her son and her daughter-in-law had spent 24 nights in the deep forest, only to be sent back to Belarus each time they made it across the border. To raise the $20,000 needed for the trip, Khalo said, she borrowed money and sold her gold jewelry. “Now we don’t have anything,” she said. In a middle-class neighborhood of Irbil, Yadgar Hussein described her own tortuous journey, which led to her deportation from Poland three weeks earlier with her children. In October, they had waded through stream of sewage, she said, and walked through the forest for days in freezing temperatures after the Belarusian police cut the border fence. But once in Poland, a driver led them into a police checkpoint, where they were arrested, with her 19-year-old son and another migrant hiding in the trunk of the car. She still cannot sleep, she said. “The only thing I know is my life is destroyed,” said Hussein, who was married at 14 and widowed four years later when her husband stepped on a land mine. She is divorced from the father of her three youngest children. Hussein says she has not given up on leaving Irbil again, perhaps next time by the perilous sea crossing from Turkey to Greece. “If I had money, I would go by sea tomorrow for the sake of my children,” she said. “Either you die or you make it there. But nobody gets arrested.”

Limping and penniless, Iraqis deported from Belarus face bleak futures

The crisis at European Union's eastern border is only escalating, clashes have broken out at the Poland-Belarus border. Police forces fired tear gas at the migrants after they resorted to stone-pelting.

Poland-Belarus migrant crisis worsens; Police forces fire tear gas, migrants pelt stones

Amid the escalating crisis, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen warned the EU will expand sanctions on Belarus and will target airlines that support "human trafficking".

Poland: Over 33,000 illegal attempts to cross the border

The situation at the Poland-Belarus border continues to escalate. Major world powers have shifted the blame and sought to shake responsibility as thousand of migrants from West Asia are manhandled by troops stationed at either side.

Vladimir Putin says Russia 'has nothing to do with it'

&nbsp;As the standoff over migrants gathering along the European Union’s eastern flank grew more precarious Thursday, with Polish news media reporting that a 14-year-old boy from Iraq had frozen to death on the Belarus side of the frontier, the language from political leaders on either side of the razor wire ratcheted up.

Western leaders have accused Alexander Lukashenko, Belarus’ autocratic leader, of engineering the crisis — creating a path into European Union countries for migrants from the Middle East.

Thousands of migrants have been escorted to the borders of Poland, Lithuania and Latvia under the watchful eyes of the Belarusian authorities. And once there, they are stranded in bitter cold, prevented from entering the EU or from going back into Belarus. It is, according to Western officials, a hybrid attack with people used as weapons.

In Poland, the government’s hard-line policy and its refusal to allow aid workers or even church doctors near the frontier has played well with its right-wing base among Polish nationalists, who Thursday were holding an annual march through the centre of Warsaw to celebrate Independence Day.

In a statement posted on Facebook, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki of Poland compared events Thursday to those that cost Poland its statehood more than a century ago. While stressing that the situation now “is not so dramatic,” he said: “What we are dealing with is a new type of war. This is a war in which civilians and media messages are the ammunition.”

Lukashenko reeled off threats to his country’s western neighbours even as the Kremlin, Lukashenko’s main benefactor, said it was working to resolve the situation.

President Vladimir Putin of Russia spoke to Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany for the second day in a row about the crisis, the Kremlin said, but he repeated his desire that European officials speak directly to their Belarusian counterparts — a nonstarter for many in the West who consider Lukashenko’s rule to be illegitimate.

Lukashenko told government officials in a televised meeting Thursday that he had agreed with Russia on patrols by nuclear-capable bombers of the country’s western borders. He also said he could shut down the flow of a major pipeline carrying natural gas from Russia to Western Europe via Belarus if the West escalated sanctions.

“We are warning Europe, and yet they threaten to close the border,” Lukashenko said, according to the Belarusian state news agency. “What if we close off the natural gas headed there? I would recommend the leadership of Poland, the Lithuanians and other brainless people to think before they speak.”

With temperatures dropping below freezing along the Belarusian border with Poland and Lithuania, both members of the European bloc, alarm is growing among aid workers that the number of deaths from exposure will increase sharply. So far, eight people have died, officials say, but the real number could be much higher.

With soldiers sealing off the border zone from news media and aid workers, the reported death of the 14-year-old Kurdish boy could not be confirmed. The boy’s body, according to a report by OKO.press, had been taken away overnight by Belarusian security services.

Poland and Belarus have both barred journalists from entering the border area and are locked in an escalating information war, each blaming the other for a deepening crisis fed by inflammatory statements about the risk of armed conflict.

In a sign of escalating tension, Poland’s defence ministry Thursday reported that its soldiers in the frontier area of Białowieza had fired warning shots into the air the previous day after “a group of several hundred migrants attempted to cross the border by force.” The migrants, the ministry said, threw objects at the soldiers and then tried to destroy a border fence.

Polish border guards said Thursday that 150 migrants had tried to cross the border from Belarus en masse overnight.

Polish officials warned of a possible attempt to “storm” the frontier Thursday evening, noting that Independence Day events scheduled across Poland had spread the security services thin, a situation that could encourage Belarus to push a new wave of people to the border.

As the standoff over migrants gathering along the European Union’s eastern flank grew more precarious Thursday, with Polish news media reporting that a 14-year-old boy from Iraq had frozen to death on the Belarus side of the frontier, the language from political leaders on either side of the razor wire ratcheted up.

As the standoff over migrants gathering along the European Union’s eastern flank grew more precarious Thursday, with Polish news media reporting that a 14-year-old boy from Iraq had frozen to death on the Belarus side of the frontier, the language from political leaders on either side of the razor wire ratcheted up. Western leaders have accused Alexander Lukashenko, Belarus’ autocratic leader, of engineering the crisis — creating a path into European Union countries for migrants from the Middle East. Thousands of migrants have been escorted to the borders of Poland, Lithuania and Latvia under the watchful eyes of the Belarusian authorities. And once there, they are stranded in bitter cold, prevented from entering the EU or from going back into Belarus. It is, according to Western officials, a hybrid attack with people used as weapons. In Poland, the government’s hard-line policy and its refusal to allow aid workers or even church doctors near the frontier has played well with its right-wing base among Polish nationalists, who Thursday were holding an annual march through the centre of Warsaw to celebrate Independence Day. In a statement posted on Facebook, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki of Poland compared events Thursday to those that cost Poland its statehood more than a century ago. While stressing that the situation now “is not so dramatic,” he said: “What we are dealing with is a new type of war. This is a war in which civilians and media messages are the ammunition.” Lukashenko reeled off threats to his country’s western neighbours even as the Kremlin, Lukashenko’s main benefactor, said it was working to resolve the situation. President Vladimir Putin of Russia spoke to Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany for the second day in a row about the crisis, the Kremlin said, but he repeated his desire that European officials speak directly to their Belarusian counterparts — a nonstarter for many in the West who consider Lukashenko’s rule to be illegitimate. Lukashenko told government officials in a televised meeting Thursday that he had agreed with Russia on patrols by nuclear-capable bombers of the country’s western borders. He also said he could shut down the flow of a major pipeline carrying natural gas from Russia to Western Europe via Belarus if the West escalated sanctions. “We are warning Europe, and yet they threaten to close the border,” Lukashenko said, according to the Belarusian state news agency. “What if we close off the natural gas headed there? I would recommend the leadership of Poland, the Lithuanians and other brainless people to think before they speak.” With temperatures dropping below freezing along the Belarusian border with Poland and Lithuania, both members of the European bloc, alarm is growing among aid workers that the number of deaths from exposure will increase sharply. So far, eight people have died, officials say, but the real number could be much higher. With soldiers sealing off the border zone from news media and aid workers, the reported death of the 14-year-old Kurdish boy could not be confirmed. The boy’s body, according to a report by OKO.press, had been taken away overnight by Belarusian security services. Poland and Belarus have both barred journalists from entering the border area and are locked in an escalating information war, each blaming the other for a deepening crisis fed by inflammatory statements about the risk of armed conflict. In a sign of escalating tension, Poland’s defence ministry Thursday reported that its soldiers in the frontier area of Białowieza had fired warning shots into the air the previous day after “a group of several hundred migrants attempted to cross the border by force.” The migrants, the ministry said, threw objects at the soldiers and then tried to destroy a border fence. Polish border guards said Thursday that 150 migrants had tried to cross the border from Belarus en masse overnight. Polish officials warned of a possible attempt to “storm” the frontier Thursday evening, noting that Independence Day events scheduled across Poland had spread the security services thin, a situation that could encourage Belarus to push a new wave of people to the border.

Tensions escalate at Poland-Belarus border as migrants face dire conditions

The migrant crisis at the Poland-Belarus border has now transformed into a massive political row involving the European Union, Belarus, Russia and now Ukraine; the crisis is worsening further. Belarus has now threatened to cut off gas to the EU.

Poland-Belarus migrant crisis: Belarus threatens to cut off gas to EU

Belarusian state-run airline on Friday banned citizens from Iraq, Syria and Yemen from boarding incoming Turkey flights at the request of Turkish authorities amid a migrant standoff between Belarus and Poland

“In line with a decision by the … Turkish authorities, citizens of Iraq, Syria, Yemen will not be accepted for transportation on flights from Turkey to Belarus from 12.11.2021,” Belavia said in a statement on Friday.

The Turkish Civil Aviation Authority confirmed the statement, saying flight tickets to Minsk would not be sold to people from the three countries from Turkey.

The move comes amid tense border stand-off between Belarus and Poland, where thousands of migrants, mostly from war-torn parts of Iraq, Syria and Yemen, fleeing conflict, persecution or poverty are stranded.

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/tensions-escalate-at-poland-belarus-border-as-migrants-face-dire-conditions-428576">Poland accuses Lukashenko’s regime of 'hybrid attack' amid migrant crisis</a>

Many aim to reach Germany or other western European countries, to reunite with relatives already settled there. In recent months, Belarus had become a favourable a route for migrants and refugees trying to enter the European Union.

Poland, Lithuania and Latvia, which are all part of the EU, have seen a surge in the number of people trying to enter their countries illegally from Belarus in recent months.

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/tensions-escalate-at-poland-belarus-border-as-migrants-face-dire-conditions-428576">Tensions escalate at Poland-Belarus border as migrants face dire conditions</a>

The European Union, the United States and NATO have accused Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko&nbsp;of manufacturing a migrant crisis on the EU's eastern frontier as retribution for sanctions over human rights abuses.

Stranded people are facing "catastrophic" conditions in freezing forests and makeshift camps at the border, according to CNN. Temperatures at the Poland-Belarus border drop below freezing at night.

German federal police on Wednesday reported that 1,246 unauthorised entries to Germany “with a connection to Belarus” had been recorded in the first nine days of November. In all, there have been 9,087 such entries so far this year, German police said.

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/putin-masterminding-the-migrant-crisis-at-poland-belarus-border-claims-polish-pm-428130">Putin masterminding the migrant crisis at Poland-Belarus border, claims Polish PM</a>

Polish authorities said that a large number of people remain just across the border in neighbouring Belarus and Polish border guards continue to rebuff attempts to enter Poland illegally each day.

There are now hundreds of people, among them families with children, staying in makeshift camps on the Belarusian side of the border.

Attempts to cross have become increasingly dangerous as Poland fortifies its side of the border and pushes people back.

&nbsp;(With inputs from agencies)

Belarusian state-run airline on Friday banned citizens from Iraq, Syria and Yemen from boarding incoming Turkey flights at the request of Turkish authorities amid a migrant standoff between Belarus and Poland “In line with a decision by the … Turkish authorities, citizens of Iraq, Syria, Yemen will not be accepted for transportation on flights from Turkey to Belarus from 12.

Belarusian state-run airline on Friday banned citizens from Iraq, Syria and Yemen from boarding incoming Turkey flights at the request of Turkish authorities amid a migrant standoff between Belarus and Poland “In line with a decision by the … Turkish authorities, citizens of Iraq, Syria, Yemen will not be accepted for transportation on flights from Turkey to Belarus from 12.11.2021,” Belavia said in a statement on Friday. The Turkish Civil Aviation Authority confirmed the statement, saying flight tickets to Minsk would not be sold to people from the three countries from Turkey. The move comes amid tense border stand-off between Belarus and Poland, where thousands of migrants, mostly from war-torn parts of Iraq, Syria and Yemen, fleeing conflict, persecution or poverty are stranded. Also read | Poland accuses Lukashenko’s regime of 'hybrid attack' amid migrant crisis Many aim to reach Germany or other western European countries, to reunite with relatives already settled there. In recent months, Belarus had become a favourable a route for migrants and refugees trying to enter the European Union. Poland, Lithuania and Latvia, which are all part of the EU, have seen a surge in the number of people trying to enter their countries illegally from Belarus in recent months. Also read | Tensions escalate at Poland-Belarus border as migrants face dire conditions The European Union, the United States and NATO have accused Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko of manufacturing a migrant crisis on the EU's eastern frontier as retribution for sanctions over human rights abuses. Stranded people are facing "catastrophic" conditions in freezing forests and makeshift camps at the border, according to CNN. Temperatures at the Poland-Belarus border drop below freezing at night. German federal police on Wednesday reported that 1,246 unauthorised entries to Germany “with a connection to Belarus” had been recorded in the first nine days of November. In all, there have been 9,087 such entries so far this year, German police said. Also read | Putin masterminding the migrant crisis at Poland-Belarus border, claims Polish PM Polish authorities said that a large number of people remain just across the border in neighbouring Belarus and Polish border guards continue to rebuff attempts to enter Poland illegally each day. There are now hundreds of people, among them families with children, staying in makeshift camps on the Belarusian side of the border. Attempts to cross have become increasingly dangerous as Poland fortifies its side of the border and pushes people back. (With inputs from agencies)

Belarus bans Iraqis, Syrians and Yemenis from boarding incoming Turkey flights to curb migrant crisis

In pics | Hundreds trapped at border as Belarus & Poland blame each other for migrant crisis

As he toured the country's newest island migrant camp on Friday, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said that his country's tougher maritime and land border patrols had essentially crushed illegal migrant networks.

Despite charges from activists that the Greek coastguard is forcing migrants' boats illegally back to Turkey, Mitsotakis said his government was guarding its borders "safely and justly."&nbsp;

"Migration flows are down 90 percent compared to 2019. I repeat, 90 percent," Mitsotakis said during a visit to a new EU-funded migrant camp on the island of Samos.

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/greece-says-cannot-become-gateway-to-european-union-for-fleeing-afghans-408759">Greece says cannot become gateway to European Union for fleeing Afghans</a>

"We have essentially crushed smuggling networks that take advantage of human pain...promising persecuted people easy entry into our homeland," Mitsotakis said.

"This government has carried out its pledge to guard our homeland's borders safely and justly," he said.

Border patrols have risen since Mitsotakis became premier in 2019, and asylum processes have been sped up. Critics say this puts asylum seekers at a disadvantage, and general benefits for refugees, even those who have been granted asylum, have been slashed.

Among the many criticisms of Greece's harsher border controls have been allegations that its coastguard is illegally forcing migrants to return to Turkey,&nbsp;the main departure point,&nbsp;on rickety ships.

Also read |&nbsp;​​​​​​​<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/greece-extends-border-wall-to-shut-doors-to-afghan-refugees-407454">Greece extends border wall to shut doors to Afghan refugees</a> &nbsp;&nbsp;

Athens has consistently denied the charges, stating that saving the lives of seafarers is the coastguard's top priority.

"No one has drowned in the Aegean this year, and I’m particularly proud of the work that my coastguard is doing in saving people at risk," Mitsotakis said this week.

In July, the Greek migration ministry said at least seven people had drowned near Kasos island, south of the Aegean Sea.

"This needless tragedy is what happens when Turkey fails to act against the criminal gangs and prevent these perilous crossings," the Greek ministry said at the time.

The Samos camp, designed to house 3,000 people, is part of several high-tech facilities funded by the European Union on Greek islands that saw the biggest arrivals from neighbouring Turkey during the migration crisis of 2015.

Also read |&nbsp;​​​​​​​<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/turkey-cannot-take-new-refugee-burden-foreign-minister-says-409265">Turkey cannot take new refugee burden, foreign minister says</a>

International Organization for Migration reports that about 800,000 people migrated through Greece in that period.

EU has committed 276 million euros ($323 million) to build new camps with stricter access measures on Lesbos, Chios, Samos, Leros, and Kos in the Aegean Sea.

As he toured the country's newest island migrant camp on Friday, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said that his country's tougher maritime and land border patrols had essentially crushed illegal migrant networks.

As he toured the country's newest island migrant camp on Friday, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said that his country's tougher maritime and land border patrols had essentially crushed illegal migrant networks. Despite charges from activists that the Greek coastguard is forcing migrants' boats illegally back to Turkey, Mitsotakis said his government was guarding its borders "safely and justly." "Migration flows are down 90 percent compared to 2019. I repeat, 90 percent," Mitsotakis said during a visit to a new EU-funded migrant camp on the island of Samos. Also read | Greece says cannot become gateway to European Union for fleeing Afghans "We have essentially crushed smuggling networks that take advantage of human pain...promising persecuted people easy entry into our homeland," Mitsotakis said. "This government has carried out its pledge to guard our homeland's borders safely and justly," he said. Border patrols have risen since Mitsotakis became premier in 2019, and asylum processes have been sped up. Critics say this puts asylum seekers at a disadvantage, and general benefits for refugees, even those who have been granted asylum, have been slashed. Among the many criticisms of Greece's harsher border controls have been allegations that its coastguard is illegally forcing migrants to return to Turkey, the main departure point, on rickety ships. Also read | Greece extends border wall to shut doors to Afghan refugees Athens has consistently denied the charges, stating that saving the lives of seafarers is the coastguard's top priority. "No one has drowned in the Aegean this year, and I’m particularly proud of the work that my coastguard is doing in saving people at risk," Mitsotakis said this week. In July, the Greek migration ministry said at least seven people had drowned near Kasos island, south of the Aegean Sea. "This needless tragedy is what happens when Turkey fails to act against the criminal gangs and prevent these perilous crossings," the Greek ministry said at the time. The Samos camp, designed to house 3,000 people, is part of several high-tech facilities funded by the European Union on Greek islands that saw the biggest arrivals from neighbouring Turkey during the migration crisis of 2015. Also read | Turkey cannot take new refugee burden, foreign minister says International Organization for Migration reports that about 800,000 people migrated through Greece in that period. EU has committed 276 million euros ($323 million) to build new camps with stricter access measures on Lesbos, Chios, Samos, Leros, and Kos in the Aegean Sea.

Even as activists accuse country of illegal deportation, Greek PM says 'essentially crushed' migrant smugglers

More Haitian migrants could be released into the United States in coming days, US Homeland Security chief Alejandro Mayorkas said Sunday, after a days-long border crisis which became a major headache for Joe Biden's administration.

Officials said on Friday that some 12,400 migrants, most of them from Haiti, were released into the United States in recent days, part of a flow of thousands crossing the Rio Grande river from Mexico near Del Rio, Texas.

They will have their cases heard by an immigration judge to determine whether or not they will be allowed to stay.

The migrant number could yet rise, Mayorkas said in a series of appearances on US talk shows.

"It could be even higher," he told Fox News Sunday.

The situation facing the migrants on the border and in Del Rio in particular has provoked major backlash for the Biden administration.

Since September 9 some 30,000 migrants, most of them Haitian, have turned up in the town.

The number of people, along with controversial images of US border patrol on horseback appearing to threaten the migrants and the decision to deport thousands back to Haiti, ignited widespread fury.

On Friday officials said that the migrants had been dispersed.

In addition to the 12,400 who are being allowed to plead their case before a US judge, around 2,000 people were returned to Haiti on expulsion flights, and an estimated 8,000 have voluntarily returned to Mexico.

Another 5,000 are being processed by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to determine if they will be subject to removal proceedings, officials said Friday. It is this 5,000 who could add to the numbers already entering the United States.&nbsp;

Republicans have seized on the situation to batter the Democratic president, with Senator Tim Scott accusing Biden of failing to secure the border.

"I think President Biden and his administration owns the crisis that they've created," Scott told CBS on Sunday.

Mayorkas, seeking to defuse the crisis, said DHS was following the law to determine whether to deport migrants who cross the border illegally.

But in another interview he deplored those same laws.

"We are working in a completely broken system," he told NBC Sunday. "I've never heard anyone say that the laws in immigration are well structured."

More Haitian migrants could be released into the United States in coming days, US Homeland Security chief Alejandro Mayorkas said Sunday, after a days-long border crisis which became a major headache for Joe Biden's administration.

More Haitian migrants could be released into the United States in coming days, US Homeland Security chief Alejandro Mayorkas said Sunday, after a days-long border crisis which became a major headache for Joe Biden's administration. Officials said on Friday that some 12,400 migrants, most of them from Haiti, were released into the United States in recent days, part of a flow of thousands crossing the Rio Grande river from Mexico near Del Rio, Texas. They will have their cases heard by an immigration judge to determine whether or not they will be allowed to stay. The migrant number could yet rise, Mayorkas said in a series of appearances on US talk shows. "It could be even higher," he told Fox News Sunday. The situation facing the migrants on the border and in Del Rio in particular has provoked major backlash for the Biden administration. Since September 9 some 30,000 migrants, most of them Haitian, have turned up in the town. The number of people, along with controversial images of US border patrol on horseback appearing to threaten the migrants and the decision to deport thousands back to Haiti, ignited widespread fury. On Friday officials said that the migrants had been dispersed. In addition to the 12,400 who are being allowed to plead their case before a US judge, around 2,000 people were returned to Haiti on expulsion flights, and an estimated 8,000 have voluntarily returned to Mexico. Another 5,000 are being processed by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to determine if they will be subject to removal proceedings, officials said Friday. It is this 5,000 who could add to the numbers already entering the United States. Republicans have seized on the situation to batter the Democratic president, with Senator Tim Scott accusing Biden of failing to secure the border. "I think President Biden and his administration owns the crisis that they've created," Scott told CBS on Sunday. Mayorkas, seeking to defuse the crisis, said DHS was following the law to determine whether to deport migrants who cross the border illegally. But in another interview he deplored those same laws. "We are working in a completely broken system," he told NBC Sunday. "I've never heard anyone say that the laws in immigration are well structured."

US expects to release more Haitian migrants into country

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