Right wing protesters demonstrate against the German government’s refugee policies ahead of federal elections in September. Photo: Michele Tantussi / Getty Images

Refugees in Germany Struggle as Election Looms

Germany – The Irish Times: The 102-page document reads like a typical consultants’ report for a struggling organization seeking to reduce its head count, writes Derek Scally. About 200,000 departures should be achieved this year, McKinsey writes, with an additional 300,000 possible with an attractive financial package. 

What sounds like just another corporate blood-letting is in fact the controversial blueprint to master stage two of Germany’s refugee crisis.

Stage one came in 2015: 890,000 people from Syria, Afghanistan and a series of African countries arrived here to file for asylum. Germans surprised the world – and themselves – with their spontaneous welcome. Armies of helping hands in Munich and elsewhere flashed around the world.

Two years on, Germany’s public mood has moved from euphoria to wounded pride, regret and, in some quarters, open xenophobia. Germany hoped for assistance from other EU countries but, apart from Austria and Sweden, that help never came. The mood cooled further after a series of vicious attacks last year, some involving asylum seekers, and culminating in the Berlin Christmas market attack by a Tunisian man with Islamic State links.

Statistics show that Germany’s natives are a greater threat to new arrivals than vice versa, with an average of 10 attacks a day on asylum seekers and their hostels last year. But, six months before the federal election here, perceptions are changing Germany’s asylum reality, and chancellor Angela Merkel’s politics.

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A 10-year-old migrant fleeing gang violence in El Salvador sits on the blankets her family use as a bed in their rented home in Tapachula, Chiapas. Photo: Alice Proujansky

By Any Means Necessary

Mexico – The Intercept: Women and children from Central America began arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border in unprecedented numbers during the summer of 2014, writes Cora Currier. Referring to the “urgent humanitarian situation,” President Barack Obama called on Congress to build new detention centers, hire new immigration judges, and increase border surveillance as tens of thousands of unaccompanied children were detained by U.S. immigration officials. At the same time, the United States backed a Mexican government initiative to increase patrols, detentions, and deportations along Mexico’s southern border. The idea was to stop Central Americans from getting into Mexico, let alone the United States.

But the gang violence, kidnappings, and extortion sending families fleeing from the “Northern Triangle” comprising El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala hasn’t stopped. The area has the highest murder rate in the world outside a war zone, and people are still coming to Mexico. Only now, as photographer Alice Proujansky documents, they are taking new routes and facing new dangers.

“Entire families arrive with little more than backpacks,” Proujansky said. “Women and children are particularly vulnerable: increased enforcement on freight trains has driven migrants to ride buses and walk on isolated routes where they face robbery, assault, and sexual violence.”

Proujansky spent time with families who were hoping to receive asylum from Mexico. There are no reliable figures on how many people cross the border with Guatemala each year, which is still porous despite increased patrols. But between 2014 and the summer of 2016, Mexico detained 425,000 migrants, according to an analysis of government statistics by the Washington Office on Latin America, or WOLA, a human rights advocacy group. In that same time, only 2,900 people received asylum. Last year, there were some 8,700 applicants, of whom 2,800 have so far received protection. (In 2014, Mexico’s refugee agency had just 15 people to screen thousands of applications).

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The United Nations Orchestra will perform on Saturday, 25th March at 8pm in Victoria Hall, Geneva. Tickets will benefit IOM's appeal for USD 234 million to help displaced Syrians. Read more | See IOM appeal

For the latest Mediterranean Update data on arrivals and fatalities please visit: http://migration.iom.int/europe 

A global database tracking data on deceased and missing migrants along migratory routes. Please visit: MissingMigrants.iom.int 

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"There is no doubt that today migration is one of the mega-trends that define our century. In Brussels, for example, more than half of the population was born in a foreign country. Building walls and fences is not only against our common humanity, it is also a bad policy."  –  European Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management Christos Stylianides. Read more here.