Nauru president loses seat in election

Yahoo – AFP, August 25, 2019

Voters went to the polls on Saturday and selected two rival candidates over
Baron Waqa (AFP Photo/Angela Weiss)

Nauru's president, a strong supporter of Australia's hardline policy of detaining refugees on the tiny Pacific island nation, has lost his seat in a general election, official results showed Sunday.

Voters went to the polls on Saturday and selected two rival candidates over Baron Waqa in his electorate of Boe, ending the 59-year-old's six years in office.

His successor will not be known until the 19-member parliament meets to choose a new president, with finance minister David Adeang considered a favourite after being re-elected.

Waqa proved a controversial leader at times and Australia's Lowy Institute think tank last year said the country of 11,000 "lurched towards authoritarianism" under his leadership.

His government has made it difficult for international media visiting Nauru to report on conditions facing asylum seekers.

It also introduced laws carrying heavy jail terms for political protesters and at times curbed access to sites such as Facebook, which critics said was aimed at curbing dissent.

Australia's policy of processing asylum seekers on Nauru -- and the equally remote Manus island in Papua New Guinea -- has proved an economic lifeline for a country which exhausted its previous source of wealth: phosphate deposits used as fertiliser.

Nauru's government revenues ballooned from Aus$20 million (US$13 million) in 2010-11 to Aus$115 million (US$77 million) in 2015-16 largely due to fees paid by Canberra linked to the asylum policy, official Australian data shows.

Refugee advocates estimate around 300 refugees remain on the island, down from a peak of about 1,200 in 2014.

Rights groups and the United Nations have consistently criticised the conditions faced by refugees, warning indefinite detention causes mental health problems and suicide attempts.

The Refugee Action Coalition said the latest incident occurred on Friday, when a Pakistani man it identified only as Jamal set himself on fire.

It said the man was believed to be in a critical condition in intensive care after being flown from Nauru to Brisbane for medical treatment.

"Jamal is another casualty of Australia offshore detention policy. After six years on Nauru, refugees have no secure future. They have lost hope," spokesman Ian Rintoul said.

"Over 300 refugees remain on Nauru, but the government has no resettlement plans."

Eritrean man picked up in North Sea on home-made raft

DutchNews, June 3, 2019

Photo: Ko van Leeuwen

The Dutch sea rescue services on Sunday rescued an Eritrean man who was trying to cross the North Sea to England on a home-made raft. 

The KNRM said it picked up the man on Sunday morning near IJmuiden, the port to the west of Amsterdam, close to a busy shipping route. 

The triangular raft had been made out of tree trncks and plastic plant pots filled with plastic bottles and polystyrene for buoyancy and tied together with rope. It had a plastic sail, and carried a jerrycan of water and a solar panel to power a mobile phone. 

According to the Noordhollands Dagblad, the man wanted to take advantage of the ebb tide to reach the wider sea and was completely reliant on wind and the tides for the 190 kilometre crossing. 

The man, said to be 26 years old, is being questioned by border police. 

‘I have never seen anything like this and I hope it is the last time I do,’ KNRM captain Walter Schol said. ‘The raft is not at all seaworthy and he was very lucky with the weather, otherwise this could have ended very differently.’

Dead Sea's revival with Red Sea canal edges closer to reality

Yahoo – AFP, Marie WOLFROM, March 18, 2018

Evaporation ponds at the southern part of the Dead Sea where both sodium
chloride and potassium salts are produced (AFP Photo/MENAHEM KAHANA)

Ghor al-Haditha (Jordan) (AFP) - Israel and Jordan have long pursued a common goal to stop the Dead Sea from shrinking while slaking their shared thirst for drinking water with a pipeline from the Red Sea some 200 kilometres away.

Geopolitical tensions have stalled efforts to break ground on the ambitious project for years, but the end of the latest diplomatic spat has backers hoping a final accord may now be in sight.

The degradation of the Dead Sea, on the border of Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian West Bank, began in the 1960s when water began to be heavily diverted from the Jordan River.

"Before 1967, the water was just a 10-minute walk from my house," said Musa Salim al-Athem, a farmer who grows tomatoes on the banks on the Jordan side.

"Now it takes an hour," he said, standing amid the resulting lunar landscape of spectacular salt sculptures, gaping sinkholes and craters.

"Only the sea can fill up the sea."

"Since 1950, the amount flowing in the Jordan has dropped from 1.2 billion cubic metres per year (42 billion cubic feet) to less than 200 million," said Frederic Maurel, an engineering expert at the French development agency AFD.

Heavy production of potash, used for making fertiliser, has also accelerated evaporation that has seen the sea's surface area shrink by a third since 1960.

Experts say water levels are falling one metre (three feet) a year, and warn it could dry out completely within 30 years.

Palestinian refugees at the al-Baqa'a refugee camp near Amman. Jordan is
determined to press ahead with the project to cope with the needs of a rising population
which has been swelled by about one million refugees fleeing war in Syria (AFP Photo/
Khalil MAZRAAWI)

'Economic treasure'

Already 100 years ago, Theodor Herzl, the father of modern political Zionism, had envisaged filling the Dead Sea via a canal dug to the Mediterranean.

The sea's natural beauty and mineral-rich black mud have also provided a source of tourism revenue.

"The Dead Sea has historical, biblical, natural, touristic, medical and industrial values that make it an invaluable cultural, environmental and economic treasure," said Avner Adin, a specialist in water science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

After years of studies, the $1.1 billion Red Sea "Peace Conduit" deal was signed by Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian authorities in 2013.

The project, located entirely on Jordanian territory, includes a desalination plant near Aqaba.

After producing drinking water, the remaining highly saline liquid will be sent by pipeline to fill the Dead Sea, powering two hydroelectric plants along the way.

A subsequent 2015 deal would see Israel get 35 billion cubic metres of potable water from the desalination plant for its parched southern regions.

The mostly desert Jordan, for its part, would get up to 50 billion cubic metres of freshwater from the Sea of Galilee.

Israel also agreed to sell 32 billion cubic metres to the Palestinian authorities.

Jordan announced in November 2016 that it had chosen five international consortiums to build the first phase of the canal.

But talks on how to finance the deal, which calls for $400 million of public funding, and geopolitical flare-ups have kept the project from moving forward.

Experts say water levels are falling one metre a year, and warn it could dry out 

completely within thirty years (AFP Photo/MENAHEM KAHANA)

'Diplomatic hazards'

Some $120 million has already been pledged by donors including the US and Japan, while France's AFD agency has secured the backing of the EU and some member states for $140 million in preferential loans to Jordan.

Talks were frozen last year after an Israeli security guard shot and killed two Jordanians at the Israeli embassy in Amman, prompting a diplomatic standoff that ended only in January.

"We have never been so close to starting the project," Maurel said. "It only needs a final push by the Jordanian and Israeli authorities."

A diplomatic source in Amman said the project remained essential for the region given the environmental and economic stakes, "but it's still at the mercy of diplomatic hazards."

For Adin at the Hebrew University, "It seems to be that the situation is improving. The main obstacle in my mind could be financial."

Officials in Jordan say they are determined to press ahead with or without Israel to cope with the needs of a rising population which has been swelled by about one million refugees fleeing the war in neighbouring Syria.

"We are proceeding with the project because desalination eventually is the future of Jordan when it comes to water," said Iyad Dahiyat, secretary general of the country's water authority.

"Water is part of the stability of the kingdom itself," he added. "It's a national security issue."

Migrant rescuers, island mayor win UNESCO peace prize

Yahoo – AFP, Ella IDE, April 19, 2017

Migrants are rescued off the coast of Libya by SOS Mediterranee's Aquarius
vessel in May 2016 (AFP Photo/GABRIEL BOUYS)

Rome (AFP) - UNESCO awarded its prestigious peace prize on Wednesday to migrant rescue association SOS Mediterranee and the mayor of Lampedusa, the tiny Italian island on the frontline of the refugee crisis.

The Felix Houphouet-Boigny Peace Prize goes to the European NGO and mayor Giuseppina Nicolini "for their work to save the lives of refugees and migrants and welcome them with dignity," the UN cultural body said in a statement.

The plight of migrants constitutes "one of the crucial issues of our day, notably in the Mediterranean where nearly 13,000 men, women and children have perished in shipwrecks since 2013," said acting jury head Joaquim Chissano, former president of Mozambique.

Lampedusa, Italy's most southerly outpost, was the first port of arrival for thousands of migrants setting off from North Africa in the first years of the crisis, which began in 2011 and has developed into the worst since World War II.

SOS Mediterranee, founded in 2015, rescues hundreds of men, women and children each week from flimsy dinghies and boats in the Mediterranean, along with other NGOs.

Nicolini was recognised for "her boundless humanity and unwavering commitment to refugee crisis management and integration in response to the arrival of thousands of refugees on the shores of Lampedusa and elsewhere in Italy".

The mayor of Lampedusa, Giuseppina Nicolini, has been recognised for her

work at the frontline of the refugee crisis (AFP Photo/ANDREAS SOLARO)

'Watery grave'

"I dedicate this prize to all those who did not make it across the sea because they were swallowed up, and also to Gabriele Del Grande," said Nicolini, referring to an Italian journalist arrested in Turkey this month while researching the lives of Syrian refugees.

"He was the first to count the Mediterranean's dead on a website, back when nobody even knew people were dying in the Mediterranean. He is now a prisoner in Turkey," she said, calling on the government to "bring him home".

The jury said SOS Mediterranee's Aquarius vessel, co-run by Doctors Without Borders, had saved more than 11,000 lives since it began search and rescue missions off Lampedusa in early 2016.

"We're so happy to be given this award together with Nicolini. We visited her when we were starting up and she said 'you are crazy but I am with you, because this is what we need after the failures of the EU'," said Sophie Beau, SOS Mediterranee co-founder.

The jury appealed to the international community "to ensure that the Mediterranean sea becomes, once again, a place where solidarity and intercultural dialogue hold sway, and that it ceases to serve as a watery grave".

Private rescue vessels sounded the alarm this weekend over the "unprecedented mass rescues" of people fleeing horrors in conflict-torn Libya, recovering seven bodies including that of an eight-year-old, and warning more migrants risked drowning without EU action.

Close to 37,000 people have been brought to safety in Italy so far this year, a 45 percent increase on the same period in 2016.

Migrants waiting to disembark from the Aquarius which has saved more than

11,000 lives since early 2016, the jury said (AFP Photo/Giovanni ISOLINO)

Solidarity

The EU's border control agency Frontex has accused donor-funded vessels of doing more harm than good by acting "like taxis" off Libya and tempting human traffickers to put as many people as possible out to sea in flimsy vessels.

Italian prosecutors have suggested they may have links with traffickers and in March named SOS Mediterranee's activity as being of interest to investigators, along with other private rescue vessels.

Their charges have been fiercely rejected by the NGOs, with SOS Mediterranee saying Wednesday it had "never, not once" been put in contact with migrants via smugglers.

"European governments need to show more solidarity to the humanitarian organisations that are working on the front line of this humanitarian crisis. Border control is not the solution," said Regina Catrambone, the director of MOAS rescue service.

UNESCO's Felix Houphouet-Boigny Peace Prize, created in 1989 to honour those making a significant contribution to peace, has gone in the past to Nelson Mandela, Israel's Shimon Peres and the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, King Juan Carlos of Spain and former US president Jimmy Carter.

Refugees in Australia's remote camps offered US resettlement

Yahoo – AFP, Glenda Kwek, November 13, 2016

A refugee is seen walking between tents at Australia's regional processing centre
on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea (AFP Photo/Refugee Action Coalition)

Sydney (AFP) - Refugees held on remote Pacific camps after trying to reach Australia by boat will be resettled in the US in a "one-off" deal, the premier says, a breakthrough that could see the controversial facilities closed.

Canberra sends asylum-seekers who try to reach Australia by boat to detention facilities on Papua New Guinea's Manus Island and Nauru. They are blocked from resettling in Australia even if found to be refugees.

"The arrangements with the United States will offer the opportunity for refugees, both on Nauru and Manus, to be resettled," Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull told reporters in Canberra.

"It is a one-off agreement. It will not be repeated... Our priority is the resettlement of women, children and families."

Successive Australian governments have sought to stem waves of boat migration by people from war-torn Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and the Middle East, using harsh policies including turning back the vessels, and strict secrecy about operations on the high seas and at the remote camps.

Although the latest policies by the current conservative government largely stopped the arrivals, conditions in the camps have been widely criticised by refugee advocates and medical professionals.

They say some asylum-seekers suffer from mental health problems due to their prolonged, indefinite detention.

The UNHCR said the arrangement was a "much-needed, long-term solution" but warned that options should be found for everyone on Manus and Nauru.

"This announcement is full of holes. No timeframe. No numbers," added Daniel Webb from the Human Rights Law Centre, which has challenged offshore detention in court.

"This ugly chapter in our history only closes when every single man, woman and child suffering at our government's hand on Nauru and Manus is finally rebuilding their lives in safety. No one can be left behind."

Map and factfile on Australia's immigration detention facilities (AFP Photo)

Trump uncertainty

The arrangement followed Turnbull's announcement in September that Australia would join a US-led programme to resettle Central American refugees at a Costa Rica centre.

Turnbull said officials from the US Department of Homeland Security would be arriving in Australia "in the next few days".

But he could not say how many refugees would be offered US resettlement and if the agreement would continue under the incoming Donald Trump administration.

President-elect Trump said on the campaign trail that he would tighten immigration, particularly for Muslims.

US Secretary of State John Kerry, who is in New Zealand, confirmed the deal, adding that "we in the United States have agreed to consider referrals from (UN refugee body) UNHCR on refugees now residing in Nauru and in Papua New Guinea".

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said asylum-seekers whose refugee applications are rejected would be expected to return home.

Refugees who are offered the US move but reject it would be offered a 20-year Nauru visa, while any future boat arrivals will not be eligible for the deal.

Dutton stressed the deal was not an incentive for people-smugglers to send more asylum-seekers by boat, with Canberra set to ramp up its marine border patrols to turn back vessels.

No 'indefinite detention'

A resettlement agreement with Phnom Penh struck in 2014 was criticised after only several refugees made the move.

Refugees can also resettle in PNG, although only about two dozen have taken up that option, Port Moresby said last month. Others reportedly cited safety fears in not wanting to settle in the Pacific country.

Labor opposition leader Bill Shorten welcomed the potential "end to indefinite detention, especially for genuine refugees".

Australia agreed in August close the Manus camp following a PNG Supreme Court ruling in April declaring that holding people there was unconstitutional and illegal.

Dutton said Sunday that Nauru "will remain in its current status forever" without elaborating further. Fairfax Media reported Saturday that Canberra wanted to close both centres by 2019.

Some 675 asylum-seekers on Manus and 941 on Nauru out of more than 2,000 applications have been successful in obtaining initial or final refugee status, the immigration department said earlier this month.

Canberra has long defended its policy of denying asylum-seekers resettlement in Australia, saying it has prevented deaths at sea.

Papua New Guinea announces Australian refugee center closure

A Supreme Court ruling means an Australian-run refugee detention facility on Papua New Guinea is illegal and must close. Now PNG is working with Australia to find a new place for the refugees to go.

Deutsche Welle, 27 April 2016

The island nation of Papua New Guinea has announced it will close a center for asylum seekers it had been hosting on behalf of Australia. This comes a day after the Supreme Court in Papa New Guinea deemed it was unconstitutional to allow Australia to detain asylum seekers on the country's Manus Island.

"Respecting this ruling, Papua New Guinea will immediately ask the Australian government to make alternative arrangements for the asylum-seekers currently held at the regional processing center," Prime Minister Peter O'Neill said in a statement on Wednesday.

No exceptions

Australian policy regarding those who attempt to enter the country illegally by boat is to reject them and send them to detention camps, paid for by the Australian government, in Papua New Guinea and the island nation of Nauru. Those found to have legitimate claims for asylum can be resettled in Papua New Guinea or Cambodia under agreements reached between Australia and those two countries.

Regarding the current asylum seekers on Manus Island, O'Neill said that legitimate refugees were welcome to live in Papua New Guinea "only if they want to be a part of our society and make a contribution to our community," but added: "It is clear that several of these refugees do not want to settle in Papua New Guinea and that is their decision."

There are currently over 800 asylum seekers being held on Manus Island, and Papua New Guinea will now being working with Australian officials about where to relocate the people being detained. Australia has made it clear that under no circumstances will they be resettled in Australia.

Self-immolation

Meanwhile, a 23-year-old refugee in an Australian-run detention facility on Nauru is set to be airlifted to an Australian hospital after setting himself on fire Tuesday during a routine visit of the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, to the facility.

According to news reports, the man shouted "I can not take this any more" before setting himself on fire. Bystanders quickly attempted to douse the flames with water and blankets.

The man is in critical condition, but Australian Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has said his application for asylum would not be influenced.

mz/kms (Reuters, AFP, AP)

Australia doctors demand children be freed from #immigration detention http://t.co/oSHkZyvn5V pic.twitter.com/s9yLBKHA2Z

— AFP news agency (@AFP) October 12, 2015

Related Articles:

Australia doctors demand children be freed from immigration detention

Nauru opens gates at refugee detention center

"New Systems" - Feb 27, 2016 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll)

"The New Human P1" - Sep 19-20, 2015 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll)
"Return of the Masters" - Apr 11-12, 2015 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll)

Shipping family’s fund buys 100 homes for refugees in Rotterdam

DutchNews, February 29, 2016

Photo: Peter de Ruiter/ UNHCR Brussel 

One of the Netherlands’ wealthiest families is investing €10 million in accommodating Syrian asylum seekers in Rotterdam, the Volkskrant reports. 

Stichting Nieuw Huis Rotterdam (SNHR) has bought 100 homes in the city to support the council’s aim of finding homes for 906 people who have been granted refugee status in the first half of the year. 

The organisation will invest the income it receives in rent in language classes and support with integration and finding work. It will work in combination with the municipality, refugee agency Vluchtelingenwerk and the accommodation service COA. The exclusive focus on Syrian families will allow it to tailor its services more effectively. 

Van der Vorm family

SNHR has been set up by De Verre Bergen, a philanthropic organisation owned by the Van der Vorm family, which owns investments and property at Rotterdam docks. The houses, which have an average value of €100,000, were bought from private owners and had been on the market for at least six months.

‘We try to get involved in the major social problems facing Rotterdam, and that includes the refugee problem,’ said director Roelof Prins.

The Van der Vorm family owns HAL Holding, which was set up in 1989 using the proceeds of the sale of the Holland-America shipping line for 1.2 billion guilders (€544 million). De Verre Bergen was established in 2011 with the stated aim of working for ‘a better and stronger Rotterdam’.

Australian hospital refuses to return asylum baby to Nauru

Yahoo – AFP, Glenda Kwek, 14 February 2016

Greenpeace holds a #LetThemStay banner on Sydney's harbour calling for the 

asylum-seekers, who are set to be deported after being brought to Australia 

for medical treatment, to be allowed to stay (AFP Photo/Peter Parks)

An Australian hospital has refused to return an asylum-seeker baby to detention in Nauru, as momentum built across the country on Sunday against offshore Pacific camps for processing refugees.

Under the government's tough immigration policy, asylum-seekers who try to reach Australia by boat are sent to detention camps in the Pacific island nations of Papua New Guinea and Nauru.

They are blocked from being resettled in Australia even if found to be refugees.

The hospital's move came as state governments, churches and activists stepped up their efforts to stop the return of some 267 refugees to Nauru following a High Court ruling.

On Sunday, campaigners from ActionAid, Amnesty International, GetUp! and Greenpeace unfurled a #LetThemStay banner on Sydney's iconic harbour calling for the asylum-seekers, who are set to be deported after being brought to Australia for medical treatment, to be allowed to stay.

People hold placards at a protest outside an immigration office in Sydney on February 4, 

2016, as Australian church leaders say they would offer sanctuary to asylum-seekers set to be

deported to Nauru to defy the government's harsh immigration policy (AFP Photo/William West)

The #LetThemStay campaign, which has been trending on Twitter, has also seen hundreds of people maintain a vigil -- now in its third day -- outside the Brisbane hospital where the baby is being cared for.

The 12-month-old infant, who is called Asha and the child of Nepalese asylum-seekers, was brought to the eastern city of Brisbane for treatment in late January after being scalded with hot water at the remote Nauru facility.

Following the High Court's ruling earlier this month in favour of the government's policies, Asha and 36 other babies born in Australia are among the asylum-seekers facing removal.

But a spokesman for Brisbane's Lady Cilento Children's Hospital said Asha "will only be discharged once a suitable home environment is identified".

Growing political, community support

Their stance was supported by Queensland state's Health Minister Cameron Dick, who said in a statement Sunday that he "strongly support(s) doctors in our hospitals to make the right clinical decisions".

"Doctors must expect to advocate for their patients," Doctors For Refugees co-founder Richard Kidd, who has joined the vigil outside the hospital, told AFP.

People protest outside an immigration office in Sydney on February 4, 2016, as 

Australian church leaders say they would offer sanctuary to asylum-seekers set to

 be deported to Nauru, to defy the government's harsh immigration policy (AFP 

Photo/William West)

"We have... overwhelming evidence over many years now that detention does terrible harm to babies and children, particularly their mental health but also physical health."

Australian church leaders in early February vowed to defy the federal government, offering sanctuary to the asylum-seekers.

Several state government premiers have said they would help settle in their communities those facing deportation if they were allowed to stay.

There have also been numerous community-led protests. Thirty-seven cots -- one for each of the Australia-born babies -- were set up on Sydney's Bondi Beach, while two campaigners abseiled from a Melbourne bridge with a "Let Them Stay" banner.

"I think the case of the 267 people has just really spoken to the hearts of the people across Australia," GetUp! organiser Sally Rugg told AFP.

"It's people from all walks of life. We are seeing churches and hospitals and teachers and premiers, it's a whole movement."

Canberra has long defended its policy, saying it has prevented the deaths of asylum-seekers at sea and secured its borders.

But rights groups have criticised the measures and detention conditions, while the government-funded Human Rights Commission has found that children who lived in the Nauru centre had high levels of mental illness.

"This offshore detention policy is being operated by the Australian government in secrecy and there's a severe lack of transparency and that's obviously not how people of Australia want their taxpayers' money being spent," Amnesty's Ming Yu Hah told AFP.

Australia doctors demand children be freed from #immigration detention http://t.co/oSHkZyvn5V pic.twitter.com/s9yLBKHA2Z

— AFP news agency (@AFP) October 12, 2015

Related Articles:

Australia doctors demand children be freed from immigration detention

Nauru opens gates at refugee detention center



Migrant crisis will make Germany stronger: refugee coordinator
EU states agree relocation of 120,000 refugees 'by large majority' 
UN Security Council approves EU anti-trafficking mission


"The New Human P1" - Sep 19-20, 2015 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll)
"Return of the Masters" - Apr 11-12, 2015 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll)

Ai Weiwei plans Berlin memorial to drowned refugees

The Chinese artist Ai Weiwei is planning a work to commemorate the refugees who drowned on their way to Europe.The memorial will be made out of 14,000 life jackets left by migrants on the beach.

Deutsche Welle, 3 February 2016

For this memorial project, Ai Weiwei will use 14,000 discarded life jackets he obtained from the Greek island of Lesbos according to a statement from the office of the island's mayor Spiros Galinos on Tuesday (02.02.2016).

"This work aims to mobilize the global community regarding the crime carried out daily in the Aegean by ruthless people smugglers," the statement added.

Although smugglers sell these life jackets at a high price, they are usually poorly made and are useless in case of an accident at sea.

Currently a guest professor at Berlin's University of Arts, Ai Weiwei has developed a strong interest in the refugees' plight. He has established a studio on the island of Lesbos, a landing point for many migrants crossing over to Europe over the Aegean Sea.

Ai Weiwei posing as Aylan Kurdi

Earlier this week, the Chinese artist already made headlines through a photo of himself posing as Aylan Kurdi on a Lesbos beach for the magazine "India Today." The pictures of the Syrian toddler whose body was found last September have become an iconic symbol of the Syrian refugee crisis.

Despite the world's growing awareness, people fleeing war-torn countries are still perishing every week while trying to reach Europe. According to the latest numbers provided by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), in January alone, 360 people have drowned during this perilous journey, and in the last five months 330 children have died on the Mediterranean.

eg/kbm (AFP, dpa)

Soul-searching: heart-rending photo of drowned toddler shows cost of Europe's migrant crisis http://t.co/z4jFW5aF3v pic.twitter.com/vkle4cbLU8

— AFP news agency (@AFP) September 3, 2015

Related Articles:

China's Ai Weiwei shuts show to protest Danish migrant law

EU strikes deal on 3 billion euro migration fund for Turkey - New

Aid groups create huge peace sign of life jackets on Greek isle

Yahoo – AFP, January 2, 2016

A photo released by Greenpeace and taken on January 1, 2016 on the Greek
island of Lesbos shows a peace sign created from over 3,000 discarded refugee
 life jackets, calling for safe passage to those fleeing war, poverty and oppression.
(AFP Photo/Florian Schulz)

Athens (AFP) - Rights groups briefly transformed a mountain of discarded life jackets used by refugees who crossed the Aegean Sea into a huge peace sign on the hills of the Greek island of Lesbos.

The giant symbol, which was made out of around 3,000 flourescent orange life jackets, was created on a hillside overlooking the 10-kilometre (six mile) stretch of water between the island's northern shores and the Turkish coastline, the Greenpeace website said.

It was formed on New Year's Day by around 100 volunteers from Greenpeace, Doctors Without Borders, Sea-Watch and the Dutch Refugee Boat Foundation as well as the local community group, Starfish.

The groups created the peace sign "on New Year's Day to bring in 2016 with a message of hope," with Greenpeace's Florian Schulz telling AFP it took three-to-four hours to create the giant symbol, which measured 10 metres from side-to-side.

But it was later removed as the group did not have permission to leave it there.

"We had no permission for the sign to stay in the hills so we dismantled it and cleaned up the dump," Schulz told AFP.

UN figures show that more than half a million people have crossed Aegean Sea to Lesbos alone over the past year, accounting for nearly 60 percent of the 850,000 who reached Greece by boat in 2015.

The vast majority were refugees fleeing war and violence in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq, with the life jackets they used left at a dump near the village of Molyvos, Greenpeace said.

A man reacts as he arrives, with other refugees and migrants, on the Greek

 island of Lesbos, on October 28, 2015, after crossing the Aegean sea from

Turkey (AFP Photo/ARIS MESSINIS)

'A silent reminder'

"The dump site stands as a statue, a silent reminder of the risks and that so many more still hold out hope of a safe crossing. It also includes the life jackets of those who never made it, of those who lost their lives at sea and can never return home or continue their journey north," it said.

More than one million migrants and refugees have entered Europe this year, four out of five of whom reached the continent via the Greek islands. Although the arrivals has declined since the autumn, around 60,000 arrived on Lesbos in December, UN figures show.

Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei on Friday said he was planning to create a memorial on Lesbos to the plight of refugees, many of whom have died trying to reach Europe.

"A lot of people have lost their lives under the waves... we need a memorial," he told AFP after a news conference on the project.

"I already set up a studio in Lesbos. Next year we are going to be involved with different projects," he added.

Chinese artist Weiwei to create refugee memorial on Lesbos https://t.co/CQZDJPsrDR pic.twitter.com/S1lyTTU0PA

— Agence France-Presse (@AFP) January 1, 2016