The racism that kills

The recent death of Jimmy Mubenga adds to the grim statistic of those who have died as a result of the UK’s brutal immigration laws. Harmit Athwal of Institute for Race Relations writes at the Guardian website on the launch of the new IRR report, Driven to Desperate Measures: 2006-2010, which documents 77 deaths of asylum seekers and migrants in the UK. These deaths rarely make the news, a strange parallel world of refused asylum seekers who are petrified of being sent back to face the dangers from which they fled. Harmit argues that racism in the UK asylum and immigration system is the root cause of these deaths.

Fatal realities of ‘Fortress Europe’: 13,824 deaths, and rising

Since 1993, the anti-racist group UNITED for Intercultural Action has been monitoring the deadly results of the building of ‘Fortress Europe’ by maintaining a list of the refugees and migrants who have died in their attempt of entering the ‘Fortress’ or as a result of Europe’s immigration policies. As at June this year, it stood at 13,824. If the deaths of over 13,824 people does not wake up Europe’s conscience, what will?