A migrant’s personal story of return, resolution and resilience Tübingen – It’s a warm summer day in 2021. Musa Coker sits in the office of his return counsellor. He has visited the small office in Southwest Germany multiple times this year, seeking information, advice and counsel and discussing his return to The Gambia, his country of origin. Today, Musa will …
Read More »The Federal Ministry of the Interior and Home Affairs (BMI) has launched a portal to provide information and orientation support to people seeking refuge in Germany from fleeing the war in Ukraine. “Germany4Ukraine.de is an information service for refugees from Ukraine. It provides them with a trustworthy, secure, digital contact point with the most important initial information after their arrival …
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Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser, speaking in the Bundestag (federal parliament) on Wednesday, said the registration of displaced persons from the war in Ukraine was currently being improved. Refugees who are admitted to initial reception centres are registered there. This should be further intensified, she said. As at Wednesday (16 March), the Federal Police had registered around 175,000 refugees from …
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According to the information of Refugees4Refugees, a rights group, 34 Nigerians were deported to their home country on Tuesday (15 March). It was the first deportation carried out onboard a charter flight this year. The deportees, who were forcibly returned aboard an aircraft belonging to Iberojet to Lagos, are persons whose asylum claims had be rejected. Thirty of the 34 …
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Germany’s Federal Ministry of the Interior has published an edict on the temporary exemption of persons from Ukraine from the requirement of a residence permit due to the war in the country. The edict, dated 7 March 2022 and called Ukraine-Aufenthalts-Übergangsverordnung (Ukraine Transitional Residence Ordinance or UkraineAufenthÜV), allows Ukrainians and third country nationals resident in the country to enter and …
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A top official of the UN has criticised the discrimination of Africans and other third country nationals escaping the war in Ukraine. “I am alarmed about verified credible reports of discrimination, violence and xenophobia against third country nationals attempting to flee the conflict in Ukraine,” said António Vitorino, the Director General of the UN’s International Organisation for Migration (IOM), in …
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Federal Minister of the Interior, Nancy Faeser, has assured that Germany will accept all refugees from Ukraine regardless of their nationality. “We want to save lives. That does not depend on passport,” Faeser told the newspaper Bild am Sonntag, referring to the increasing number of people coming to Germany from Ukraine. Faeser said that the vast majority of the refugees …
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“We note with horror that because of the colour of their skin, some European countries bordering the Ukraine refuse Africans entry into their countries,” ARDI, the European Parliament Anti-Racism and Diversity Intergroup, said in a letter to Dr Ursula von der Leyen, President of the EU Commission. ARDI was reacting to widespread reports from Africans attempting to flee the war …
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Following a meeting in Brussels on Thursday, the interior ministers of European Union’s member states unanimously agreed to provide temporary protection to people fleeing the war in Ukraine. Under the scheme, called the “Temporary Protection Directive”, refugees will have the right to live and work in the European Union for at least one year, a period that can be extended …
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A German-supported centre has opened at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) in Accra to provide both voluntary and forced returnees from Europe advice on available reintegration initiatives and livelihood support programmes by the government and other agencies for their re-establishment process. The Migration Information Centre for Returnees (MICR) was declared open by the Chief Director of the ministry, Mrs Adelaide …
Read More »A young man dying from cancer had one last wish: To see his family in Ghana once more. So his village in Italy raised money for his flight. The Pope spoke of this story during his Sunday prayers. John (on the right) with Councillor Gian Mario Cotti | Photo: Gian Mario Cotti on Facebook When a young migrant, suffering from …
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NIDO Germany has successfully participated in the pilot phase of a project to integrate the organisation and returning experts into the advisory structure of the Nigerian-German Centre for Jobs, Migration and Reintegration (NGC) on regular migration. The NGC, run by the GIZ and which operates in Abuja, Benin-City and Lagos, provides advisory services to prospective migrants as well as conducts …
Read More »More and more refugees are becoming successful in appealing against a negative asylum decision. In the vast majority of cases, they are granted protection status by the courts. The Left party complains about “political pressure” on the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees. A growing number of refugees are successful in appealing against the rejection of their asylum application. In …
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The labour force in Germany, the number of people who are potentially available to the country’s labour market, will decline in the long term due to demographic changes. Even with an increasing labour force participation rate of women and older people and an annual net immigration of 100,000 people, the labour force will decline from 47.4 million in 2020 to …
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A member of the Nigerian community in Hamburg, Mrs Ngozi Utoh-Samuel, has called on the German authorities to temper justice with mercy on the situation of Nigerians whose asylum applications have been rejected. The civil society activist, who is the founder of Positive Life Global Empowerment (PLGE) e.V., took to her Facebook page on Tuesday to address the issue of …
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A conference bringing Nigerians from across the globe together will hold on 2 October. The Nigeria Global Diaspora Conference, a one-day hybrid (physical and virtual) event, focuses on how to better engage Nigerians in diaspora in the development of their homeland at a time it’s going through many challenges. Organised by the Society of Young Nigerians in Diaspora for International …
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“NIDO Germany would therefore like to partner with NAPTIP to enlighten young Nigerians on the risks and dangers of irregular migration while providing them information on opportunities of legal migration to Europe”
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“One of programme’s main objectives is to identify and conceptualise the threats to personal and social wellbeing created by displacement, migration and conflict”
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President Muhammadu Buhari has fired Senator Basheer Mohammed, Director-General of the National Agency for Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), and appointed Dr Fatima Waziri-Azi to replace him. Mohammed had been appointed on 27 May 2021 to replace Imaan Suleiman Ibrahim. Ms Ibrahim herself had only been on the job for less than six months before her removal, having been …
Read More »President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has praised the families of Turkish immigrants as an important part of Germany. A Germany without the so-called guest workers, their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren would be “simply inconceivable” today, Steinmeier said on Friday at an event to mark the 60th anniversary of the German-Turkish recruitment agreement in Berlin. They and immigrants from other countries had contributed …
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THE AFRICAN COURIER. Reporting Africa and its Diaspora! The African Courier is an international magazine published in Germany to report on Africa and the Diaspora African experience. The first issue of the bimonthly magazine appeared on the newsstands on 15 February 1998. The African Courier is a communication forum for European-African political, economic and cultural exchanges, and a voice for Africa in Europe.