Migrants look to UK as Germany toughens laws – and warn that people smuggling could increase
Ahmed is on the move.
From a sun-bleached phone screen, he explains he’s running from Germany after being threatened with deportation.
His target destination: the UK.
“I want to go to the UK because I’m afraid of the deportation in Germany. Already they try to deport me and that’s why I left,” he says in a video message.
It’s hurriedly recorded somewhere on the coast of northern France.
In a few hours, he expects to get the signal from smugglers that they will try to cross the channel in a dinghy.
It’s his second attempt in just a few days.
Ahmed speaks via video call
His first attempt failed after French police caught the group trying to pick up more passengers and slashed their dinghy.
Ahmed is one of a number of Iraqi Kurds Sky News teams have met recently who’ve paid smugglers to get to the UK after Germany toughened its deportation rules.
Rishi Sunak‘s Illegal Migration Act, which created powers to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, hasn’t put them off.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Germany announced tougher laws in an attempt to reduce illegal migration.
“I’m not afraid about Rwanda or even about crossing the water because I’m looking for a better place to live,” Ahmed says. “I’m very sure if the deportation doesn’t stop in Germany, all the refugees in Germany will cross the border to UK.”
Asylum applications in Germany rocketed to their highest rate since 2016 last year as more the 351,000 people arrived – around four times the amount coming to the UK.
In an attempt to reduce illegal migration, the German government announced tougher laws.
The new measures include faster decisions on asylum applications, restricted benefits and speedier deportations.
Authorities also have more powers when conducting searches and can hold people for up to 28 days ahead of return flights.
Deportations are up around a third on the same period last year with more than 6,300 people deported between January and April, according to official statistics.
Outside the Iraqi embassy in Berlin, we meet a group of protestors who say they’re already feeling the effects of the new laws.
More from Sky News:
Why is worldwide migration higher than ever?
‘UK isn’t safe,’ says asylum seeker
Protesters outside the Iraqi embassy in Berlin
Many have lived in Germany for years, some given temporary leave to remain, but have recently been told Iraq is safe to return to and it’s time to leave.
“Some of my friends have been deported. The police raided the house at two or three in the morning,” Goran tells me.
He says he’s noticed a rise in people having their asylum claims rejected.
“I’m scared and can’t sleep in my own home,” he says.
He shows me a card which registers him as severely disabled with the Germany authorities.
Both his legs have been amputated and he says he can’t live in Iraq.
Goran says he’s noticed a rise in people having their asylum claims rejected
I ask if he thinks people will flee to other countries such as France and the UK if deportations keep on rising.
“For sure, smuggling will increase,” he replies. “People who feel their lives are politically threatened back in Iraq will try any way possible to reach another country.”
Another lady shows us the medicine she relies on, which she says is hard to get in Iraq.
“They know that my country is not safe,” she says. “I own videos of the killings, robbery and kidnapping of women.”
The group holds up pictures of people they say are victims of deportation – a man injured as he tried to flee, and another they claim died at sea on a smuggler’s boat.
The German government says the deportations are in line with international law.
One woman told us medication would be hard to get in Iraq
A spokesperson from the interior ministry said in a statement: “The Act to Improve Repatriation, which came into force on 27 February 2024, contains numerous and extensive improvements in order to be able to enforce an obligation to leave the country even more effectively in future.
“Co-operation with Iraq takes place in a so-called non-contractual procedure in accordance with the principle of international law, according to which every state is obliged to take back its own citizens informally if they have no right of residence in the host country.”
In a kitchen in southern Germany, we listen as our phone call to Kurdistan rings.
A young man answers.
Hama, not his real name, tells us he was deported to Iraq at the end of April.
He explains there were 25 immigrants on his deportation flight and 90 officers guarding them.
A deportation flight leaving Germany
He claims his life is at risk in Kurdistan so he is in now in hiding.
“How did you feel on the flight home?” I ask.
“Very, very bad,” he says. “It’s not safe, I cannot go outside.”
Hama is now indefinitely separated from his wife Shaida, who is Iranian and was given asylum in Germany.
Time ran out before they could gather the paperwork to prove they were legally married.
Shaida is devastated.
“We didn’t sleep for 10 days. It’s very hard to see him like this because I feel like they took something from us,” she says.
“Germany, how can they say they are a democratic country? My husband didn’t do anything wrong. He was on a course learning German and he was working.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Party leaders on migration crisis
Following the 2015 migrant crisis, Germany’s then chancellor Angela Merkel announced an “open door policy” and took in more than a million refugees fleeing war in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.
She defended the decision, saying it was an “extraordinary situation”, but the migration policy outraged some voters and led to a surge in support for the far-right Alternative for Germany.
The policy was later abandoned but Germany remains one of the largest refugee-hosting countries in the world.
Faced with surging asylum applications last year, the current Chancellor Olaf Scholz agreed an “historic” stricter migration policy.
The chancellor is now under pressure to do more following the recent gains by the far right in the EU elections.
German state leaders have demanded he makes “proposals for effective control” ahead of a meeting on Thursday.
This month, after a police officer died following an attack by a failed asylum seeker, he pledged to tighten rules so the glorification of terrorist offences can be sufficient grounds for deportation.
He also said the government was working on ways to deport criminals and dangerous migrants back to countries such as Afghanistan and Syria.
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
I ask Shaida if she agrees when politicians say nations have to have a limit and can’t grant every asylum application they receive.
“I accept what you’re saying but Germany doesn’t know how to do it fairly,” she replies.
Shaida shows me pictures of herself in her wedding dress standing by her husband in the German countryside.
It could be years before the man she loves is allowed to return.
Germany’s open door period is a distant memory.
As for Ahmed – he’s now in the UK.
After several failed attempts, including one when the French police cleared the beach with tear gas, he managed to slip away on a dinghy and into British waters.
The cardinals have arrived, the finishing touches are being made; Vatican City is preparing for an election like no other.
On Wednesday, the papal conclave begins and many visitors to St Peter’s Square already have a clear view on what they would like the outcome to be.
“I want a liberal pope,” says Joyce who has travelled to Rome from the US.
“My number one is Pierbattista Pizzaballa,” says blogger Teodorita Giovannella referencing the 60-year-old Italian cardinal.
Rome resident Michele Rapinesi thinks the next pope will be the Vatican’s secretary of state, Pietro Parolin, who was Pope Francis’ number two.
Joyce has travelled all the way to Rome from the US
Michele Rapinesi speaks to Siobhan Robbins
Although the job of selecting the next pontiff lies with 133 cardinal electors, Ms Giovannella and Mr Rapinesi are among 75,000 Italians playing an online game trying to predict who they’ll pick.
Fantapapa is a similar format to fantasy football, but teams are made up of prospective pontiffs.
Ms Giovannella has chosen three popular Italians as her favourites: Cardinals Pizzaballa, Zuppi and Parolin.
After 47 years she wants an Italian pope but believes an Asian or African would be a good “plot twist”.
Despite the growing speculation and excitement, for the cardinal electors the papal conclave is the serious and sombre process of choosing the next leader of the Catholic Church and its 1.4 billion followers.
Teodorita Giovannella is hoping the next pope will be a fellow Italian
To keep the vote secret, they are locked in the Sistine Chapel which has been swept for hidden cameras, recording equipment and bugs.
The windows are covered to keep the outside world out and to stop drones from spying.
Mobile phones are banned and signal jammers have been installed to help stop any information being leaked.
Ballots are burned after they are cast and a plume of coloured smoke shows people if a new pope has been chosen.
Read more:
How Pope Francis heralded a new kind of leadership for Catholic Church
When does conclave start and how does it work?
How does the Sistine Chapel prepare for conclave?
Preparations inside the Sistine Chapel
The cardinal who is elected will become one of the most powerful men in the world and will set the course for the Catholic Church for years to come, making decisions which will affect the lives of millions of people worldwide.
Pope Francis’ 12-year reign pulled the church in a more progressive direction.
His fight for migrants and climate change made him a muse for Roman street artist Mauro Pallotta.
He met him five times and painted more than 30 pictures of him, celebrating his life on the walls of Rome.
Siobhan Robbins with Rome street artist Mauro Pallotta
One of Mr Pallotta’s artworks of Pope Francis
One shows Francis with a catapult shooting out hearts.
“It depicts the strong love he had for people,” Mr Pallotta explains.
In another, he wears a cape and is depicted as a superhero.
“I hope the new pope continues the way of Pope Francis and remembers the poor people of the world,” he says.
Whether the next pontiff is another pope of the people, a progressive or conservative will soon be decided by the cardinals.
Their choice will determine if the Catholic Church continues down the route set by Francis or takes a different path.
Israel has approved a plan to capture all of the Gaza Strip and remain there for an unspecified length of time, Israeli officials say.
According to Reuters, the plan includes distributing aid, though supplies will not be let in yet.
The Israeli official told the agency that the newly approved offensive plan would move Gaza’s civilian population southward and keep humanitarian aid from falling into Hamas’s hands.
On Sunday, the United Nations rejected what it said was a new plan for aid to be distributed in what it described as Israeli hubs.
Israeli cabinet ministers approved plans for the new offensive on Monday morning, hours after it was announced that tens of thousands of reserve soldiers are being called up.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has so far failed to achieve his goal of destroying Hamas or returning all the hostages, despite more than a year of brutal war in Gaza.
Palestinian children struggle to get donated food at a community kitchen in Khan Younis, Gaza. Pic: AP
Officials say the plan will help with these war aims but it would also push hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to southern Gaza, exacerbating an already dire humanitarian crisis.
They said the plan included the “capturing of the strip and the holding of territories”.
It would also try to prevent Hamas from distributing humanitarian aid, which Israel says strengthens the group’s rule in Gaza.
The UN rejected the plan, saying it would leave large parts of the population, including the most vulnerable, without supplies.
It said it “appears designed to reinforce control over life-sustaining items as a pressure tactic – as part of a military strategy”.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
IDF reservists call for end to war in Gaza
Read more:
Israeli pilots’ letter reveals deepening rift
Seriously ill children from Gaza allowed into UK
More than 52,000 Palestinians have been killed since the IDF launched its ground offensive in the densely-populated territory, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
It followed the deadly Hamas attacks on Israel, which killed 1,200 people and saw around 250 people taken hostage.
A fragile ceasefire that saw a pause in the fighting and the exchange of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners collapsed earlier this year.
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business3 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway