Archive for July 16th, 2015

16/07/2015

Dreams that Wither and Die in the African Desert

Human Wrongs Watch

By Boureima Balima*

NIAMEY, 15 July 2015 (IRIN)* When 26-year-old Koné Kabiné left his home in Cote d’Ivoire’s capital Abidjan six months ago, he never thought he would end up at a migrant centre in Niger with serious injuries, about to return to the very place he so badly wanted to escape.

Kabiné had long dreamed of making his way to Europe and earning his fortune, as he heard so many of his friends and neighbours had done before him.

“Once I lost my job, I couldn’t keep living without work, with nothing to do there,” he told IRIN.

read more »

16/07/2015

Greek Crisis: ‘New Austerity Measures Must Not Lose Sight of Human Rights’

Human Wrongs Watch

The implementation of new austerity measures in Greece amid the country’s deteriorating economic crisis must not come at a cost to human rights, a United Nations expert warned today as he urged international institutions and the Greek Government to make “fully informed decisions” before adopting additional reforms.

Greece’s severe financial crisis has bred social unrest and intolerance of the nearly one million irregular migrants living in the country (October 2012). Photo: IRIN/Kristy Siegfried

Greece’s severe financial crisis has bred social unrest and intolerance of the nearly one million irregular migrants living in the country (October 2012). Photo: IRIN/Kristy Siegfried

“I am seriously concerned about voices saying that Greece is in a humanitarian crisis with shortages in medicines and food,” Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky, the UN Independent Expert on foreign debt and human rights, on 15 July 2015 stressed in a press statement.

read more »