Tag Archives: Migrant Crisis

Germany seeks to limit migration from North Africa, faces integration challenges

BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany wants to limit migration from North Africa by declaring Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia ‘safe countries’, officials from the ruling coalition said on Monday, cutting their citizens’ chance of being granted asylum to virtually zero.

The initiative follows outrage over sexual attacks on women in Cologne on New Year’s Eve blamed predominantly on North African migrants that sharpened a national debate about the open-door refugee policy adopted by Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Europe’s most populous country and largest economy has borne the brunt of the continent’s biggest refugee influx since World War Two. Some 1.1 million asylum seekers arrived in the country in 2015, most fleeing war and poverty in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.

Merkel’s conservative party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), agreed on Monday that Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia – troubled by unrest rather than full-blown conflict – should be designated safe countries.

The step is intended to reduce the number of arrivals from these countries and make deportations easier, CDU general Peter Tauber said after a meeting of senior party members.

Earlier on Monday, government spokesman Steffen Seibert said Berlin wanted to discuss with other European Union states designating Morocco and Algeria as safe countries.

On Sunday, Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel said Berlin could cut development aid to countries that are not willing to take back citizens whose asylum applications were rejected.

Asked about Germany’s policy towards Algeria and Morocco, Gabriel told ARD television: “There cannot be a situation where you take the development aid but do not accept your own citizens when they can’t get asylum here because they have no reason to flee their country.”

INTEGRATION

To help integrate refugees and defuse social tensions that have escalated since the Cologne attacks, Gabriel called on Monday for an extra $5.45 billion a year in public spending on police, education and daycare.

“We can only manage the double task of integration, namely accommodating the new arrivals and also preserving the cohesion of our society, if we have a strong state capable of acting,” he said after a meeting of his senior Social Democrats (SPD), the coalition partner in Merkel’s government.

He said Germany needed 9,000 more police, 25,000 new teachers and 15,000 daycare workers, while funds for public housing should be doubled.

His proposal is expected to be approved at federal and state level in coming months.

Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble wants to avoid the government taking on new debt in 2016, but he has admitted this may be difficult due to the ballooning refugee costs.

Part of those costs will be covered with the surplus from last year’s budget, which was a bigger-than-expected 12.1 billion euros.

(Additional reporting by Holger Hansen and Andreas Rinke; Editing by Mark Heinrich and John Stonestreet)

Advocates puzzled by U.S. response to Central American migrants

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Refugee advocates said on Thursday the Obama administration is sending mixed signals to Central American migrants by deporting families who have fled to the United States while increasing resources in the crime-ridden region for asylum seekers.

Secretary of State John Kerry announced on Wednesday that the United States would work with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to expand opportunities for people from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras to apply for refugee status before coming to the United States.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security recently conducted raids in the United States on Central American families who had fled the region in an effort to deter others from doing the same.

“That frankly leaves us scratching our heads and leaves us wondering how the administration could be talking about the refugee resettlement issue in such different terms,” said Wendy Young, president of Kids in Need of Defense, an advocacy organization for children who enter the U.S. immigration system alone.

Young said the families were not given due process before being deported.

The question of what claim Central Americans fleeing violence have to refugee status in the United States comes amid a polarized national debate about the U.S. immigration system.

Some congressional Republicans have said migrants, including refugees from Central America and the Middle East, could threaten public health and national security. More than 140 Democrats in the U.S. House wrote a letter to President Barack Obama condemning the deportation raids.

Refugee and immigration advocates said the administration’s plan to deport Central Americans from the United States while increasing opportunities for them to seek asylum from their own countries wrongfully assumes that those asking for asylum at the border are a threat.

The asylum application process, which can take two years, is unfeasible for families needing to flee violence quickly, said Jen Smyers, associate director of immigration and refugee policy at Church World Service.

Michelle Brané, director of migrant rights and justice at the Women’s Refugee Commission, said the administration’s “border enforcement approach to this issue has been a mistake from the beginning.”

Young said the administration wanted to counter the perception that border is out of control but “I think what they’re going to find out is that the most dangerous political calculation is that the immigrant rights community … are now all unifying and speaking out in strong opposition to this new policy.”

(Reporting by Julia Edwards; Editing by Bill Trott)

Angry Bavarian politician sends bus full of refugees to German chancellor

BERLIN (Reuters) – An irate local politician from Germany’s southern state of Bavaria took a bus carrying 31 refugees to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s office in Berlin on Thursday as a protest against her open-door refugee policy.

The Syrians, escorted by police, arrived after a 550-kilometer trip outside Merkel’s office, where a dozen German protesters, unconnected with them, were chanting “Merkel must go” in protest at her line on immigration.

Peter Dreier, head of the southeastern town of Landshut, acted on a threat he made to Merkel last year when he said his municipality could no longer cope with the number of arrivals.

“I think that we have to ensure the humane treatment of these refugees,” Dreier said upon his arrival in the capital, traveling on the bus with the refugees.

“On this scale and within such a short time we simply can’t guarantee that any more.”

Authorities in Landshut had arranged for the refugees to be transferred into the hands of local authorities in Berlin. They did not get off the bus for an hour amid confusion over what accommodation had been arranged. Only asylum centers appeared to be available.

“I am a little disappointed since I’ve been in touch with the Chancellery and didn’t expect the refugees to be sheltered at camps here in Berlin,” Dreier said.

German newspaper “Die Welt” reported that Dreier eventually decided to pay for the refugees’ immediate accommodation at a hotel out of his own pocket.

Government spokesman Steffen Seibert issued a statement in response to Dreier, saying that accommodating the hundreds of thousands of migrants who have entered Germany in recent months was the responsibility of federal states and municipalities.

“The government is aware that the current number of refugees is posing significant challenges throughout Germany and especially in Bavaria,” Seibert said, adding that additional financial support was being provided to communities this year.

Dreier represents the Freie Waehler, a loose grouping of politicians who do not have a common policy, but campaign on individual issues.

Merkel is under increasing pressure to stem the flow of migrants coming to Germany. Some 1.1 million people arrived last year and several thousand continue to stream in every day and there has been a backlash by right-wing groups.

Mass sexual assaults on women in Cologne at New Year by gangs of young men described by police as being of Arab or North African in appearance, have deepened worries.

The frustration in Bavaria, the main entry point for most migrants, is especially strong with Merkel’s conservative allies, the Christian Social Union (CSU), repeatedly calling on her to introduce a formal cap on migrant numbers. She has resisted such a cap, arguing it would be impossible to enforce.

(Reporting by Reuters Television and Tina Bellon; Writing by Madeline Chambers; Editing by Andrew Roche)

Istanbul bomber entered Turkey as refugee from Syria, PM says

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – An Islamic State suicide bomber who killed 10 German tourists in the heart of Istanbul’s historic district entered Turkey as a refugee from Syria and went undetected as he was not on any watch lists, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Wednesday.

The bomber, who blew himself up among groups of tourists on Tuesday near the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia, the top sites in one of the world’s most visited cities, had registered with immigration authorities in the city a week ago.

Turkey has kept an open border to refugees from Syria’s civil war and is now home to more than 2.2 million, the world’s largest refugee population. But its border has also been used by foreign fighters seeking to join Islamic State or return from its ranks to commit atrocities abroad.

“This individual was not somebody under surveillance. He entered Turkey normally, as a refugee, as someone looking for shelter,” Davutoglu told a news conference, adding he had been identified from fragments of his skull, face and nails.

“After the attack his connections were unveiled. Among these links, apart from Daesh, we have the suspicion that there could be certain powers using Daesh,” he said, using an Arabic name for Islamic State.

Turkey accuses Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and his allies including Iran and Russia, of cooperating with Islamic State in the Syrian regime’s effort to destroy Syrian opposition forces.

Turkey, which like Germany is a member of the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, has become a target for the radical Sunni militants.

It was hit by two major bombings last year blamed on the group, in the town of Suruc near the Syrian border and in the capital Ankara, the latter killing more than 100 people in the worst attack of its kind on Turkish soil.

Asked if Turkey planned retaliatory air strikes on Islamic State, Davutoglu said Ankara would act at a time and in a manner that it saw fit. He pointed out the Turkish military had hit Islamic State targets abroad after the Suruc and Ankara attacks.

But he said Russia’s entry into the Syrian war was a complicating factor. Turkish war planes have not flown in Syrian air space since Turkey shot down a Russian fighter jet in late November, triggering a diplomatic row with Moscow.

“They (the Russian air force) shouldn’t obstruct Turkey’s fight against Daesh … Right now unfortunately there is such a barrier,” Davutoglu said. “Certain countries are in an obstructive attitude in terms of Turkey’s air bombardments. They should either destroy Daesh themselves or allow us to do it.”

TOUR GUIDE YELLED “RUN”

Asked about a report in the Turkish media that the bomber had registered at an immigration office in Istanbul a week ago, Interior Minister Efkan Ala earlier confirmed that his fingerprints were on record with the authorities.

The Haberturk newspaper published what it said was a CCTV image of the man, named in some local media as Saudi-born Nabil Fadli, at an Istanbul immigration office on Jan. 5. Turkish officials have said he was born in 1988.

Foreign tourists and Turks paid their respects at the site of the attack early on Wednesday. Scarves with the Bayern Munich soccer club emblem were left along with carnations and roses at the scene, before Turkish police sealed off the area.

German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere, visiting Istanbul, said there were no indications Germans had been deliberately targeted and that he saw no reason for people to change travel plans to Turkey. He said Germany stood resolutely by Turkey’s side in the fight against terrorism.

“If the terrorists aimed to disturb, destroy or jeopardize cooperation between partners, they achieved the opposite. Germany and Turkey are becoming even closer,” he said, adding there was no link to Germany’s role in the fight on terrorism.

Davutoglu praised the German group’s Turkish guide who, according to the Hurriyet newspaper, yelled “run” after seeing the bomber standing among the tourists and pulling a pin on his explosives, enabling some of them to get away.

Witnesses said the square was not packed at the time of the explosion, but that several groups of tourists were there.

“I didn’t finish the tour, you know, the tour I had bought,” said Jostein Nielsen, a wounded Norwegian tourist, as he waited on a stretcher at Istanbul airport, his left leg bandaged.

“I still have to go to the Blue Mosque and the old Turkish Bazaar … We have no hard feelings towards Turkey. We know there are some mad people out there,” he said.

DETENTIONS CONTINUE

Davutoglu said the security forces had detained four people suspected of links to the suicide bomber, and that six of those wounded were still in hospital. The German foreign ministry said earlier five Germans were still in intensive care.

A Peruvian national was also injured in the blast.

Turkey has rounded up hundreds of suspected Islamic State members since launching what it called a “synchronized war on terror” last July, raids which continued on Wednesday.

Since the attack, police have detained a total of 65 people including 16 foreign nationals in six Turkish cities, the Dogan news agency reported.

The Russian foreign ministry confirmed three of those detained were Russian nationals, but it was not immediately clear whether there was any connection to the Istanbul attack, for which there has been no claim of responsibility.

Turkey has faced criticism at home and abroad for failing to do more to fight Islamic State networks, but Ala, the interior minister, defended Turkey’s record, saying 200 suspects had been detained just a week before the Istanbul blast.

He said Turkey, which has repeatedly called on foreign intelligence agencies to do more to prevent would-be jihadists from traveling to its shores, had detained 3,318 people for suspected links to Islamic State and other radical groups since Syria’s conflict began. Of that number, 847 were subsequently arrested, most of them foreigners.

(Additional reporting by Melih Aslan in Istanbul, Orhan Coskun in Ankara, Michelle Martin in Berlin, Jack Stubbs in Moscow; Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Giles Elgood and Janet McBride)

Anti-immigrant ‘Soldiers of Odin’ raise concern in Finland

HELSINKI (Reuters) – Wearing black jackets adorned with a symbol of a Viking and the Finnish flag, the “Soldiers of Odin” have surfaced as self-proclaimed patriots patrolling the streets to protect native Finns from immigrants, worrying the government and police.

On the northern fringes of Europe, Finland has little history of welcoming large numbers of refugees, unlike neighbouring Sweden. But as with other European countries, it is now struggling with a huge increase in asylum seekers and the authorities are wary of any anti-immigrant vigilantism.

A group of young men founded Soldiers of Odin, named after a Norse god, late last year in the northern town of Kemi. This lies near the border community of Tornio, which has become an entry point for migrants arriving from Sweden.

Since then the group has expanded to other towns, with members stating they want to serve as eyes and ears for the police who they say are struggling to fulfil their duties.

Members blame “Islamist intruders” for what they believe is an increase in crime and they have carried placards at demonstrations with slogans such as “Migrants not welcome”.

While most Finns disapprove of the group, its growth signals disquiet in a country strained by the cost of receiving the asylum seekers while mired in a three-year-old recession that has forced state spending and welfare cuts.

Finnish police have also reported harassment of women by “men with a foreign background” at New Year celebrations in Helsinki, as well as at some public events last autumn.

This followed complaints of hundreds of sexual assaults on women in Cologne and other German cities – with investigations focused on illegal migrants and asylum seekers – and allegations that Swedish police covered up accusations of similar assaults by mostly migrant youths in Stockholm.

Police files show reported cases of sexual harassment in Finland almost doubled to 147 in the last four months of 2015 from 75 in the same period a year earlier. The figures give no ethnic breakdown of the alleged perpetrators.

NO PLACE FOR VIGILANTES

The government has made clear there can be no place for vigilantes. “As a matter of principle, police are responsible for law and order in the country,” Prime Minister Juha Sipila told public broadcaster YLE on Tuesday, responding to concerns about the group. “Civilian patrols cannot assume the authority of the police.”

Finland received about 32,000 asylum seekers last year, a leap from 3,600 in 2014. Yet it has a relatively small immigrant community, with only around 6 percent of the population foreign-born in 2014 compared with a European Union average of 10 percent.

In Kemi, the Soldiers of Odin patrol the streets daily despite the temperatures sinking to -30 Celsius (-22 Fahrenheit). The group has stated it operates in 23 towns, but police says the network operates in five. Its Facebook page has 7,600 “likes”.

“In our opinion, Islamist intruders cause insecurity and increase crime,” the group says on its website. One self-proclaimed member, aiming to recruit new members in the eastern town of Joensuu, said on Facebook the group is “a patriotic organisation that fights for a white Finland”.

In the eastern German city of Leipzig, more than 200 masked right-wing supporters, carrying placards with racist overtones, went on a rampage this week.

Last October, a masked swordsman in Sweden killed two people with immigrant backgrounds in a school attack that fuelled fears that the refugee influx is polarising public opinion.

In Finland, no clashes have been reported between the Soldiers of Odin patrols and immigrants but police said they are keeping a close eye on the group. The Security Intelligence Service has said “some patrol groups” seem to have links to extremist movements.

LET THE POLICE DO THEIR JOB

Police acknowledge patrolling alone is not a crime. “As long as the patrols only report possible incidents to police, they have the right to do so,” said Kemi police Chief Inspector Eero Vanska. However, he added: “They should let the police do their job.”

Some Soldiers of Odin members play down the group’s motives, saying it aims to help people regardless of their skin colour. The group has closed its website following reports on some members’ criminal background. Members contacted by Reuters declined to comment.

But one of the group’s founders in Kemi, Mika Ranta, made clear immigration was the focus.

“We woke up to a situation where different cultures met. It caused fear and concern in the community,” he told a local newspaper in October. “The biggest issue was when we learned from Facebook that new asylum seekers were hanging around primary schools, taking pictures of young girls.”

Vanska said some asylum seekers had been seen near schools with phones. But he added that these reports could be simple misunderstandings and there was no concrete evidence to support the accusations.

The coalition government – which includes The Finns, an anti-immigration party – has criticised the patrols.

“These kinds of patrol clearly have anti-immigration and racist attributes and their action does not improve security,” interior minister Petteri Orpo told Reuters. “Now the police must commit its scarce resources to (monitoring) their action.”

But the government faces pressure to clamp down more on asylum seekers. Support for The Finns party, which joined the coalition in May, has plummeted partly because voters are frustrated with the government’s handling of migrants.

The government has tightened immigration policies, requiring working-age asylum seekers to do some unpaid jobs and acknowledge a “national curriculum” on Finnish culture and society.

The patrols have also prompted a counter-movement, with Facebook communities hoping to avert confrontations on the streets. One such is the Sisters of Kyllikki, named after a character in the national epic poem Kalevala.

“Our aim is to help people and to build up dialogue with all Finns as well as with immigrants,” said Niina Ruuska, a founder of the group which has about 1,500 Facebook members.

(Editing by Alistair Scrutton and David Stamp)

Canada prepares to welcome 10,000th Syrian refugee, few problems so far

TORONTO (Reuters) – Canada prepared on Tuesday to welcome its 10,000th Syrian refugee since November, and resettlement workers said the heavy influx has gone smoothly despite a shortage of housing in Toronto and a pepper-spray incident in Vancouver.

“We had a tough time bringing in this flow of 10,000, but we are getting used to it,” said Ahmad Hematya, executive director of the Afghan Association of Ontario, which has sponsored more than 200 newcomers in recent weeks.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberals, elected in October on a promise to accept more refugees more quickly than the previous Conservative government, had promised to bring in 25,000 Syrians by the end of December but pushed back that timeline to March because of concerns about security screening and logistics.

According to the government’s immigration website, 9,593 Syrian refugees had arrived in Canada between Nov. 4, when Trudeau was sworn into office, and Jan. 11.

The mostly smooth arrival of the refugees was marred on Friday when a man riding a bicycle unleashed pepper spray on a group of refugees after a welcome event in Vancouver, according to Vancouver police.

Trudeau was quick to condemn the attack, Tweeting that it “doesn’t reflect the warm welcome Canadians have offered,” and resettlement workers shrugged off the incident as not even worth mentioning, given an outpouring of public support.

Apkar Mirakian, chair of the committee helping to sponsor refugees through the Armenian Community Centre of Toronto, said the biggest challenge has been finding enough housing.

He said about 40 families are living at a city hotel temporarily but that sponsors and resettlement workers can usually find permanent housing within two weeks.

“The main objective is to get all these people to work, and then there are the children who want to go to school now that the holidays are over,” said Mirakian, whose group has overseen the arrival of 700 newcomers in four weeks.

While landing in Toronto and Montreal, refugees are also settling across the country.

In Winnipeg, Manitoba, the province’s largest refugee resettlement agency has all its beds filled. Welcome Place, run by Manitoba Interfaith Immigration Council, currently houses about 120 people, mostly Syrian refugees. The council is now filling temporary refugee housing in an apartment block and dormitory. Refugees stay for about two weeks before moving into more permanent housing.

(Reporting by Andrea Hopkins in Toronto and Rod Nickel in Winnipeg; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

Germany to speed up deportations after Cologne attacks

BERLIN (Reuters) – German ministers outlined plans on Tuesday to speed up the deportation of foreigners who commit crimes, responding to sexual attacks on women by migrants in Cologne which have deepened doubts about the country’s open-door refugee policy.

The assaults on New Year’s Eve, which are the subject of an ongoing investigation, have emboldened right-wing groups and unsettled members of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative party, raising pressure on her to crack down forcefully on migrants who commit crimes.

Under plans unveiled by conservative Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere and Social Democrat (SPD) Justice Minister Heiko Maas, foreigners who are found guilty of committing physical and sexual assaults, resisting police or damaging property, could be deported.

Under current law, most of these crimes carry probationary sentences and do not trigger expulsion.

Merkel welcomed the agreement between the two ministers who represent different parties in her right-left coalition.

“We must make sure the law can take effect as soon as possible. First we have to think how to get the parliamentary process going as quickly as possible,” conservative Merkel said.

On Monday night, more than 200 masked right-wing supporters, carrying placards with racist overtones, went on a rampage in the eastern city of Leipzig, throwing fireworks, breaking windows and vandalizing buildings, police said.

That took place at the same time as roughly 2,000 anti-Muslim protesters marched peacefully in the city center and chanted “Merkel must go”. They held placards showing the chancellor in a Muslim veil and reading “Merkel, take your Muslims with you and get lost”.

More than 600 women have complained of being attacked on New Years Eve in Cologne and other German cities. The complaints range from sexual molestation to theft and police have said their investigations are focused on illegal migrants from north Africa as well as asylum seekers.

In response, Michael Grosse-Broemer, parliamentary whip for Merkel’s conservatives, called on Tuesday for steps to limit immigration from Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia by classifying them as “safe countries”.

Germany took the same step for western Balkan countries last year and has seen a sharp drop in arrivals from there since then.

The head of Cologne police was dismissed last week for his handling of the attacks and the SPD interior minister of North Rhine-Westphalia Ralf Jaeger is also under fire from political foes.

With more migrants arriving in Europe’s biggest economy, Merkel is under growing pressure to toughen her line on refugees. However, her coalition parties are at odds on a range of other steps.

An INSA poll in Bild daily put support for Merkel’s conservative bloc down 1 point at 35 percent with the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD), which has strongly criticized Merkel’s refugee policies, up 2 points at 11.5 percent.

INSA polls put the conservatives a couple percentage points lower and AfD higher than the other leading polling institutes.

Social tensions have already bubbled to the surface with almost daily attacks on refugee shelters.

On Monday evening, the group of right-wingers who vandalized part of Leipzig held a placard reading “Leipzig bleibt Helle”, or “Leipzig stays light”, an apparent reference to the skin color of residents.

(Editing by Noah Barkin and Raissa Kasolowsky)

Anti-migrant protesters go on rampage in Germany, police say

BERLIN (Reuters) – Over 200 masked right-wing supporters, carrying placards with racist overtones, went on a rampage in the eastern city of Leipzig on Monday night, throwing fireworks, breaking windows and vandalizing buildings, police said.

Emotions are running high in German cities after gangs of young migrant men sexually assaulted women at New Year in mass attacks in Cologne and other towns.

The attacks have deepened public scepticism towards Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open-door refugee policy and her mantra that Germany can cope with the 1.1 million migrants who arrived in the country last year. It has also fueled right-wing groups.

As roughly 2,000 anti-Muslim “LEGIDA” protesters marched peacefully in the city center, police said a separate group of 211 people walked through the southern Connewitz district before setting of fireworks, erecting barricades and vandalizing property. The top floor of one building caught fire.

The group carried a placard reading “Leipzig bleibt Helle”, or “Leipzig stays light”, an apparent reference to the skin color of residents.

“The 211 people were to a not insignificant degree already on record as being right-wing sympathizers and or members of violent sporting groups,” said police, adding officers brought the situation under control relatively quickly.

Self-styled German soccer ‘hooligans’ tend to join right-wing groups on marches, sometimes starting fights.

The police put the right-wingers in a bus which was then attacked by left-wing supporters.

At the LEGIDA protest, people shouted “Merkel must go” and held placards showing the chancellor in a Muslim veil and reading “Merkel, take your Muslims with you and get lost”.

With the number of migrants arriving in Europe’s biggest economy set to rise further this year, Merkel is under growing pressure to toughen her line on refugees.

An INSA poll in Bild daily put support for Merkel’s conservative bloc down 1 point at 35 percent with the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD), which has strongly criticized the Merkel’s refugee policy, up 2 points at 11.5 percent.

INSA traditionally puts AfD slightly higher than most other polling institutes.

(Reporting by Madeline Chambers; Editing by Noah Barkin)

Iraqi embassy in Berlin issues 1,400 passports for migrants to return

BERLIN (Reuters) – The Iraqi embassy in Berlin has issued 1,400 passports recently for Iraqi migrants who want to return to their home country, the German foreign ministry said on Monday.

A ministry official told Reuters only 150 passports had been issued here by the end of last October and did not give any reason for the sharp increase since then.

Separately, a ministry source said the increase could be related to recent developments in the conflict in Iraq.

Iraq’s elite counter-terrorism forces pushed Islamic State fighters to the suburbs of the city of Ramadi last month in what has been touted as the first major success for Iraq’s army since it collapsed during the militant Islamists’ lightning advance across the country’s north and west 18 months ago.

Iraq was the fifth most important country of origin for asylum applications in Germany in 2015, data from the Interior Ministry shows.

In recent weeks, the German government has urged authorities from migrants’ and refugees’ countries of origin to provide passports for people willing to return.

Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere has said German development aid for countries should be dependent on whether governments are prepared to take back citizens who do not have any prospects of being able to stay in Germany.

(Reporting by Andreas Rinke; Writing by Michelle Martin; Editing by Tom Heneghan)

Aid convoy reaches starving Syrian town of Madaya

MADAYA, Syria (Reuters) – An aid convoy entered a besieged Syrian town on Monday where thousands have been trapped without supplies for months and people are reported to have died of starvation.

Trucks carrying food and medical supplies reached Madaya near the Lebanese border and began to distribute aid as part of an agreement between warring sides, the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross said.

“Offloading of aid expected to last throughout night,” ICRC spokesman Pawel Krzysiek tweeted.

Dozens are said to have died from starvation or lack of medical care in the town and activists say some inhabitants have been reduced to eating leaves. Images said to be of emaciated residents have appeared widely on social media.

At the same time, another convoy began entering two Shi’ite villages, al Foua and Kefraya in the northwestern province of Idlib 300 km (200 miles) away. Rebel fighters in military fatigues and with scarves covering their faces inspected the aid vehicles in the rain before they entered.

Madaya is besieged by pro-Syrian government forces, while the two villages in Idlib province are encircled by rebels fighting the Syrian government.

Women cried out with relief as the first four trucks, carrying the banner of the Syria Red Crescent crossed into Madaya after sunset, with civilians waiting on the outskirts of the town as the temperature dropped and it began to get dark.

The full aid operation was expected to last several days, the ICRC said.

Images said to be from Madaya and showing skeletal men with protruding ribcages were published by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a group that monitors the war, while an emaciated baby in a nappy with bulging eyes was shown in other posts.

Dr Mohammed Yousef, who heads a local medical team, said 67 people had died either of starvation or lack of medical aid in the last two months, mostly women, children and the elderly.

“Look at the grotesque starve-or-surrender tactics the Syrian regime is using right now against its own people. Look at the haunting pictures of civilians, including children – even babies – in Madaya, Syria,” U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power said on Monday.

“There are hundreds of thousands of people being deliberately besieged, deliberately starved, right now. And these images, they remind us of World War Two; they shock the conscience. This is what this institution was designed to prevent.”

The United Nations said last Thursday the Syrian government had agreed to allow access to the town. The world body is planning to convene peace talks on Jan. 25 in Geneva in an effort to end nearly five years of civil war that have killed more than a quarter of a million people.

But Syrian opposition co-ordinator Riad Hijab accused Russia of killing dozens of children in a bombing raid on Monday and said such action meant the opposition could not negotiate with President Bashar al-Assad’s government.

There was no immediate comment from Russia, which denies any targeting of civilians in the conflict.

WATER AND SALT

Madaya residents on the outskirts of the town said they wanted to leave. There was widespread hunger and prices of basic foods such as rice had soared, with some people living off water and salt, they said.

One opposition activist has said people were eating leaves and plants.

The blockade of Madaya has become a focal issue for Syrian opposition leaders, who told a U.N. envoy last week they would not take part in the proposed talks with the government until it and other sieges were lifted.

The siege began six months ago when the Syrian army and its Lebanese ally, Hezbollah, started a campaign to reestablish Assad’s control over areas along the Syrian-Lebanese border.

Hezbollah responded to accusations it was starving people in Madaya by denying there had been any deaths in the town, and accusing rebel leaders of preventing people from leaving.

SIEGE WARFARE

Blockades have been a common feature of the civil war. Government forces have besieged rebel-held areas near Damascus for several years and more recently rebel groups have blockaded loyalist areas including al Foua and Kefraya.

Aid agencies welcomed Monday’s deliveries but called for regular access to besieged areas.

“Only a complete end to the six-month old siege and guarantees for sustained aid deliveries alongside humanitarian services will alleviate the crisis in these areas,” a joint statement from several international agencies said.

The areas included in the latest agreement were all part of a local ceasefire deal agreed in September, but implementation has been difficult, with some fighting around Madaya despite the truce.

Each side is looking to exert pressure on the other by restricting entry of humanitarian aid, or evacuations, in their areas of control, the Observatory says.

The last aid delivery to Madaya, which took place in October, was synchronized with a similar delivery to the two other villages.

Aid agencies have warned of widespread starvation in Madaya, where 40,000 people are at risk.

Hezbollah has said rebels in the town had taken control of aid, which they were selling to those who could buy. The people of Madaya were being exploited in a propaganda campaign, it said.

Syria’s National Reconciliation Minister Ali Haidar said on Sunday that rebels had “disrupted” the entry of food supplies.

“They wanted to escalate it as a humanitarian issue ahead of the Geneva talks,” he told Al Manar TV.

A U.N. commission of inquiry has said siege warfare has been used “in a ruthlessly coordinated and planned manner” in Syria, with the aim of “forcing a population, collectively, to surrender or suffer starvation”.

One siege is by the Islamic State group, on government-held areas of the city of Deir al-Zor.

A U.N. Security Council adopted on Dec. 18 setting out a road map for peace talks calls on the parties to allow aid agencies unhindered access throughout Syria, particularly in besieged and hard-to-reach areas.

A newly formed opposition council set up to oversee negotiations has told U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura that this must happen before the talks he plans to hold on Jan. 25.

They also told him that before negotiations, Assad’s government, which has military support from Russia and Iran, must halt the bombardment of civilian areas and barrel bombing, and release detainees in line with the resolution.

(Reporting by John Davison and Lisa Barrington in Beirut; additional reporting by Kinda Makieh on the outskirts of Madaya and Suleiman Al-Khalidi in Amman; Editing by Giles Elgood and Mark Trevelyan)