Germany scraps funding for sea rescues of migrants
Germany is cutting financial support for charities that rescue migrants at risk of drowning in the Mediterranean, saying it will redirect resources to addressing conditions in source countries that spur people to leave.
For decades, migrants driven by war and poverty have made perilous crossings to reach Europe's southern borders, with thousands estimated to die every year in their bid to reach a continent grown increasingly hostile to migration.
"Germany is committed to being humane and will help where people suffer but I don't think it's the foreign office's job to finance this kind of sea rescue," foreign minister Johann Wadephul told a news conference.
"We need to be active where the need is greatest," he added, mentioning the humanitarian emergency in war-shattered Sudan.
Under the previous left-leaning government, Germany began paying around €2m (R41.87m) annually to non-governmental organisations carrying out rescues of migrant-laden boats in trouble at sea. For them, it has been a key source of funds: Germany's Sea-Eye, which said rescue charities have saved 175,000 lives since 2015, received around 10% of its total income of around €3.2m (R67m) from the German government.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
TimesLIVE
2 days ago
- TimesLIVE
Germany scraps funding for sea rescues of migrants
Germany is cutting financial support for charities that rescue migrants at risk of drowning in the Mediterranean, saying it will redirect resources to addressing conditions in source countries that spur people to leave. For decades, migrants driven by war and poverty have made perilous crossings to reach Europe's southern borders, with thousands estimated to die every year in their bid to reach a continent grown increasingly hostile to migration. "Germany is committed to being humane and will help where people suffer but I don't think it's the foreign office's job to finance this kind of sea rescue," foreign minister Johann Wadephul told a news conference. "We need to be active where the need is greatest," he added, mentioning the humanitarian emergency in war-shattered Sudan. Under the previous left-leaning government, Germany began paying around €2m (R41.87m) annually to non-governmental organisations carrying out rescues of migrant-laden boats in trouble at sea. For them, it has been a key source of funds: Germany's Sea-Eye, which said rescue charities have saved 175,000 lives since 2015, received around 10% of its total income of around €3.2m (R67m) from the German government.
IOL News
3 days ago
- IOL News
Patriot: "A memoir of courage, truth, and the fight against oppression"
I've never written a review halfway through a book. But this one hit so hard, I had to get it off my chest. Reading Patriot by Alexei Navalny doesn't feel like flipping through pages—it feels like sitting across from someone who's been to hell and back, scarred but unshaken, somehow still able to crack a joke. It's not just political. It's personal! He's not posturing for attention or playing the hero. He's just telling the truth. And he makes you feel like he's telling it to you. The book opens with Navalny being poisoned, and it's brutal. He doesn't sugar-coat the experience. 'I was drowning in my own body, unable to breathe or think,' he writes. His brain is slipping, his body is collapsing, and you're right there with him in the haze, the panic. He wakes up in a Berlin hospital. Alive, barely. And that's when the writing begins. What gets me is that even in this chaos, he keeps his sense of humor. 'In Russia, you don't just pay to pass, you pay to survive.' That line made me laugh and ache at the same time. The absurdity of it all. The courage it takes to joke in the face of that kind of terror. He survives. Barely. He's flown to Germany. What follows is five long months of recovery. And not just physical recovery. Psychological, emotional, spiritual. He's rebuilding from the inside out. During this time, he meets with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. There's something surreal about it. This man, who nearly died now standing across from one of the most powerful leaders in the world. But even then, he's not basking in the moment. He's planning his return. And this is where the tension rises again. He knows what's waiting for him in Russia. Prison. Retaliation. Maybe worse. But he decides to go anyway. Before leaving Berlin, he observes an old Russian tradition. He pauses for a moment of silence before the journey. 'I don't believe in God,' he says plainly, 'but I stood silently, honoring the moment.' That hit me. The contradiction. The reverence. It's not religion. It's something older, deeper. And I felt like I was standing right there with him. And then. God. The part that made me so angry I could barely keep reading. He landed in Moscow. And just like that, they arrest him. Right there in the airport. After everything. After he was poisoned, after months of recovery, after walking back into danger with eyes wide open, they're waiting to throw him in prison like it's nothing. I wanted to punch the officers. Literally. I was furious. And he knew this would happen. He chose it anyway. What follows is brutal. His descriptions of prison life are bleak. Solitary confinement. Hunger strikes. Psychological torment. Endless humiliation. But he doesn't write them to gain sympathy. There's no begging. No performance. He just tells it straight. Sometimes almost too straight. And that's what makes it so powerful. The restraint. The refusal to collapse into victimhood. That's resistance. The line that keeps echoing in my mind, is this: 'Silence is complicity. I choose to stand.' It's not just a slogan. It's a commitment. A way of being. A choice you make again and again, even when no one's watching. That sentence cracked something open in me. Where am I staying silent? Where should I be standing? Navalny's story doesn't let you look away from that question. It dares you to answer it honestly. Then, just when you think you've seen the full picture, he takes us back. Way back. To a memory that completely caught me off guard. His secret baptism. His grandmother took him, as a boy, to a small church in a Soviet village and had him baptised quietly, away from the eyes of the regime. I was struck by how gentle that memory was. Tender. Almost sacred. In a world that tried to erase identity and faith, she gave him both. It reminded me that quiet acts of love and resistance are sometimes the most powerful. He writes about his childhood in Soviet military towns, the impact of Chernobyl, and the eerie, controlled monotony of those years. I learned so much I didn't know about life under Soviet rule. It's not just history. It's lived experience. What stood out most to me was how all of that shaped his mind. The way he saw injustice early. How he started noticing the cracks. And when he talks about leaders like Gorbachev and Yeltsin, it's so clear-eyed. Respectful. But unromantic. He helps you understand how power shifted, how Putin slipped in through those cracks, and what changed when he did. It's the kind of clarity I wish more people had. He joins the liberal opposition party Yabloko because, as he puts it, 'I wanted to be part of something that stood for change, for honesty, for a better Russia.' There's no big speech. No grandstanding. Just a young man making a choice. That's what keeps hitting me with this book. It's full of big courage that starts with small decisions. A conversation. A meeting. A yes. Then Yulia. He meets her on a trip to Turkey, and he just knows. 'This is the girl I will marry.' It's funny. A little wild. And somehow deeply him. That decisiveness. That instinct to move boldly when something matters. It shows up everywhere in his life. In love. In politics. In prison. When their daughter is born, something shifts. 'When my daughter was born, I suddenly felt something change in me. I found myself praying, even though I didn't know to whom.' That line wrecked me. In the best way. It's so honest. He's not pretending to suddenly be religious. He's just opening himself to the mystery of it all. That vulnerability. That depth. That's what makes this memoir feel like more than a book. It feels like a conversation you keep having with yourself. This book has challenged me. Not just intellectually. Emotionally. Spiritually. Ethically. I've learned so much. About the Soviet Union. About post-Soviet Russia. About corruption and courage and consequence. But more than anything, I've felt this book. It got under my skin. Here's what I'm taking with me: Learn. Read widely. Reflect deeply. Act. Even when it's risky. Especially then. Support people who speak the truth. Even when it's uncomfortable. Laugh. Humor is a form of resistance. Pause. Find meaning in the quiet moments, like Navalny did before boarding that flight. Don't simplify. Life is layered. Be okay with not having all the answers. Patriot doesn't just make me admire Navalny. It makes me ask who I want to be when things get hard. And that's the kind of book that matters. So, if you read this, I hope you'll ask yourself too: What would you risk for the truth? And when the moment comes, will you choose to stand? Stay tuned for part two...
eNCA
3 days ago
- eNCA
Denmark to push for stricter EU migration policies
COPPENHAGEN - Denmark's strict migration policies have slowly spread across Europe and the country will now push for harsher EU-wide regulations during its upcoming EU presidency, including on asylum handling and legal appeals. Migration policy "is linked to security, that is to say that we need a Europe that is safer, more stable and robust, and that isn't really the case if we don't control the flows to Europe," Denmark's European Affairs Minister Marie Bjerre said as she presented the country's priorities for its EU presidency, which it takes over from Poland on July 1. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen hopes to build EU consensus on externalising asylum procedures outside Europe, and restricting the scope of rulings from the European Court of Human Rights. She set the tone during a recent visit to Berlin. "We need new solutions to reduce the influx to Europe and to effectively send back those who don't have the right to stay in our countries," she said at a press conference with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who applauded the Danish "model". Denmark, where the number of inhabitants of foreign origin has soared from 3.3 percent in 1985 to 16.3 percent in 2025, says it needs to limit the number of immigrants in order to safeguard its generous cradle-to-grave welfare system. At the same time, the need for foreign labour has surged, with the number of work permits doubling in less than a decade, though these can be swiftly revoked. 'Schizophrenic' situation Refugees in Denmark are entitled to a one-year renewable residency permit, and they are encouraged to return home as soon as authorities deem there is no longer a need for a safe haven. "Refugees are expected to integrate while also being prepared to leave at anytime... a kind of contradictory or schizophrenic situation," researcher Marie Sandberg, the head of the Centre for Advanced Migration Studies at the University of Copenhagen, told AFP. "As recent research shows, the increased focus on return policies and temporary protection, along with high demands for getting permanent residency, create a very, very difficult integration landscape for newcomers into Danish society," she added. Denmark made headlines in 2020 when it revoked residency permits for 200 Syrians, deeming the situation in Damascus no longer justified a Danish residence permit. Since her election to the head of the centre-left Social Democrats 10 years ago, Mette Frederiksen has shifted her party's migration policy far to the right, in line with that of preceding right-wing governments backed by the far right. She has repeatedly called non-Western immigration Denmark's "biggest challenge". In 2024, she expressed support for an MP who alleged that some well-integrated immigrants were "undermining" Danish society. "We are a sociable and relaxed country culturally, but for some reason Muslims have been seen as a kind of threat to this liberal culture," lamented Michala Bendixen, head of the Refugees Welcome organisation. Externalising asylum Championing a "zero refugee" policy, Denmark is keen to externalise the asylum process to a country outside Europe. In 2024, the country accepted 860 refugees, 13 times fewer than in 2015. Two years ago, the government halted its plans to process asylum requests abroad -- possibly in Rwanda -- and keep refugees there if their applications were approved, in order to try to find a joint solution with the European Union. While all similar efforts in European countries have so far failed, "there will be a European attempt to do something on the subject" during the Danish EU presidency, Bendixen said. Denmark also recently joined Italy and seven other countries to seek a reinterpretation of the European Convention on Human Rights to allow for changes to migration policy, arguing that the text sometimes protects "the wrong people." "We used to be proud of being one of the first countries to sign the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, and we've also been part of the UNHCR resettlement scheme since the late 1980s. However ... Denmark seems to be ready to test the (limits of the) conventions," Sandberg said.
