Europe Solidaire Sans Frontières
Maria Markina, a singer and volunteer from Hamburg, talks about her experience of helping Ukrainian refugees, her volunteer organization, and the relations between volunteers from Russia and Ukraine
Maria, first of all, tell us a little bit about yourself. Are you still active in opera? How (...)
We have a problem, and a serious one at that. The belief persists in the public sphere that Poles are full of goodwill towards Ukrainians. We have managed to give ourselves medals for this, and we accept thanks from Ukraine. The problem is that this goodwill no longer exists.
It was certainly (...)
Pushing ‘irregular’ migrants back from Poland, Lithuania and Latvia won’t stop them coming
For over a year now, there has been a humanitarian crisis along borders between the European Union and Belarus. Poland is refusing to give refuge to asylum seekers who enter it from Belarus, and the (...)
Finland, Poland and the Baltic states are stopping Russians from leaving Russia. It would be a tragedy if Sweden did the same, says David Crouch.
An iron curtain is descending across Europe. But in contrast to the beginning of the Cold War, the curtain is being drawn down by EU countries – not (...)
One of Warsaw’s major railway stations, working as an information point for Ukrainians fleeing Russia’s invasion, was full of people. It was early May, and the crowds had shrunk as the number of those crossing the Polish-Ukrainian border had decreased. Yet, there was a dire need for volunteers (...)
Since the beginning of the Russian offensive on Ukraine on February 24th, over 5 million people have registered for temporary protection programmes and other schemes across Europe. By and large, Ukrainians have been granted access to assistance, and extended legal statuses allowing them to (...)
Some EU countries have rigid human trafficking laws that don’t recognize other forms of labor exploitation, such as the case of these migrant truck drivers, leaving them unprotected and vulnerable
AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands – Randy remembers feeling paralyzed by dread. He could not shake off (...)
‘The army is much meaner and more focused on disturbing our work.’
More than 3.5 million of the 6.5 million people who have fled Russia’s invasion have entered the EU at the Poland-Ukraine border, mainly to open arms and a hot meal. This situation stands in stark contrast to the reception for (...)
According to the European Agency for Fundamental Rights data, Roma are the most persecuted minority in Europe. During the 49th session of the Human Rights Council, the international organization Minority Rights Group (MRG), operating in Ukraine, alarmed that human rights violations against Roma (...)
In a long-term view of the eastern EU border, it is heightened militarization and exclusion that is the norm, with the kind of openness we are witnessing with regard to the Ukrainians being the exception. What, then, is to be done in a country like Slovakia where there is little hope that (...)
This is not the first time that the victims of the war in Ukraine have received relatively more attention than the victims of the wars in Asia, Africa and Latin America. How can such an exclusive attitude of the West be explained? Geopolitical factors provide only a partial explanation. A (...)
Change to controversial legislation will allow Ukraine refugees to move into housing emptied of ‘non-westerners’
Denmark is facing fresh claims of racism after MPs changed the country’s controversial anti-ghetto law to allow Ukrainian refugees to move into social housing emptied of (...)
The reception of Ukrainian refugees in Poland has painted an image of a country welcoming refugees. But the crisis at the border with Belarus tells a different story.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has forced more than 10 million people to leave their homes in search of safety. The majority of (...)
Grupa Granica claim activists simply gave humanitarian aid to family stranded in border forest amid deepening refugee crisis
Four activists were detained in Poland on 23 March for aiding migrants crossing the Belarusian border. They currently face three months of pre-trial arrest.
“When they (...)
‘EU leaders have tacitly admitted that EU migration policies, at a purely mechanical level, are unfit for purpose.’
The EU’s decision to grant Ukrainian refugees temporary protection in the country of their choice is not just the right thing to do for displaced Ukrainians, it is also a valuable (...)
Volunteers are the backbone of relief efforts for Ukrainians, but they are let down by a government that – until two weeks ago – was set against refugees
I stand in the middle of a huge hall in Korczowa, close to the border with Ukraine at Poland’s A4 highway. It used to be a duty-free shopping (...)
In Europe, the volunteers welcoming Ukrainian refugees are often the same people attacked for aiding refugees in the Mediterranean. That’s not just hypocritical, it’s inhumane — we should welcome all migrants fleeing war and terror.
Across Europe, vast networks of collection points and delivery (...)
It was at the end of the 1990s when the EU once again realized that it was not able to act unilaterally and in solidarity in times of crisis. While this had already become obvious regarding the war in Bosnia and the genocide there, the Kosovo crisis, and the influx of refugees due to it was (...)
Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has already forced 1 million people to flee the country. Across Eastern Europe, organized labor is helping to welcome refugees.
At 5 AM last Thursday, Vladimir Putin’s government gave the Russian army the green light to invade Ukraine. Hundreds of thousands (...)
The death of about thirty migrants in the English Channel on 24 November 2021, as well as the dramatic situation experienced by thousands of migrants on the border between Poland and Belarus a few weeks ago, show us that European countries are increasingly sinking into policies to repress (...)
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