Over two decades after they were forced to flee their homes in northern Sri Lanka, tens of thousands of Muslim IDPs still feel reluctant to return. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS
The camp should not have been difficult to find. We were told to drive straight on the road that leads north away from the town of Puttalam, 140 kilometres from Sri Lanka’s capital Colombo, and we would come upon the settlement of internally displaced people.
Ahead of President Barack Obama’s trip to Mexico and Costa Rica, experts here are expecting that security will take a back seat to issues of economic cooperation between the U.S. and Mexico.
Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto. Credit: cc by 2.0
But some Washington advocacy groups are sounding alarms about shifting away too soon from critical security and rights concerns.
“A lot of the focus is going to be on economics,” President Obama told reporters Tuesday.
Manolada strawberry farmers shoot immigrants who demanded 6 months salaries. 28 wounded in hospital.
The immigrant workers had reportedly gathered to demand six-months’ worth of unpaid wages when one of three work supervisors whom they were negotiating with shot them. About 20-30 of the 200 strawberry pickers from Bangladesh got injured. Local media reported that four of them are in a serious health condition. The employer has been arrested and investigations are going on.
The bodies of three immigrants, one young woman, one boy about 5 and a girl about 8 years old were found in different beaches of Lesvos island.
Relatives of 9 Syrians refugees missing since the 7th of March, when they tried to cross the Aegean, notified the authorities that their relatives were aboard a vessel carrying 15 immigrants from Dikeli (Turkey). They said that they lost contact with the people in the small boat during their crossing from Dikeli to Mitiliene.
The bodies of three immigrants, one young woman, one boy about 5 and a girl about 8 years old were found in different beaches of Lesvos island.
Relatives of 9 Syrians refugees missing since the 7th of March, when they tried to cross the Aegean, notified the authorities that their relatives were aboard a vessel carrying 15 immigrants from Dikeli (Turkey). They said that they lost contact with the people in the small boat during their crossing from Dikeli to Mitiliene.
A group of business executives, civil society leaders, policy experts and former government officials from Mexico and the United States are recommending that the two countries expand cooperative law-enforcement efforts along the border.
They also assert that both countries need to develop a joint plan to address the negative effects that the current immigration system is having on individuals, families and communities.
The electoral and political stars are aligning in ways that offer the United States and Mexico major opportunities to substantially deepen their cooperation, particularly on trade, energy, and immigration, according to a report released here Wednesday by a special commission of the Inter-American Dialogue (IAD).
An immigrant from Senegal died falling from a height, on the rails of the subway in Thiseio station in central Athens, during an operation of Municipal Police to remove peddlers from tourist area.
A big operation of Municipal Police started on Friday afternoon on the touristic area of Thiseio, in central Athens, to remove immigrants from the streets, who work as peddlers to live.
One night in 1979, bombs dropped from the sky, killing 16 members of Ismail’s family. “The war took some people to Europe and America, but it destroyed my family,” Ismail, who is universally addressed as “uncle”, says.
Hailing from the Haska Mena district in Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar province, he says his parents insisted he go to the only school in the district, in Shpole Baba. The times were tumultuous.
The landscape in northern Sri Lanka’s former war zone can change abruptly from the ordinary to the surreal.
Areas that lie on the main highways, or major towns like Kilinochchi, Paranthan and Mullaittivu, have replaced the rubble with restaurants, banks, shops and ATM machines. Here, three and a half decades of civil war that only ended in May 2009 seem to have been long forgotten.
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