EU leaders claim breakthrough on migration

EU leaders say they have achieved a breakthrough on migration, bolstering the EU’s external borders and expanding solidarity among member states to ease pressure on Greece, Italy and others. ABC News reports that the EU will screen migrants in North Africa for asylum eligibility and set up control centers within the EU. https://abcn.ws/2Kg6FpG

US: initiative to reunite child migrants with parents

Thermo Fisher Scientific has announced that it is offering to donate 1 million USD worth of rapid DNA analyzers and related technology to support efforts to reunite children and parents recently separated at the U.S.-Mexico border. Company President Marc Casper said the offer was an “example of how we can provide technology to address a societal challenge . . . to help reunite children with their families, here and all over the world.” https://bit.ly/2Kjf2Rt

Jordan says it cannot accept more Syrian refugees

The Associated Press…

Pakistan: protest against enforced disappearances enters fourth day

Dawn newspaper reports that scores of families of missing persons protested against the enforced disappearance of their relatives as a hunger strike entered its fourth day on Wednesday. The activists, gathered in Hyderabad, the second-largest city in Sindh Province, are demanding action to recover 41 missing persons from Sindh. https://bit.ly/2tJMVQb

Kosovo: campaigners file 150 criminal complaints

Balkan Insight reports that representatives of the Civil Society Group, which works on collecting evidence of war crimes committed in the municipality of Gjakova/Djakovica during the Kosovo conflict, has filed 150 criminal complaints with the Special Prosecutor’s Office. During the war in Kosovo more than 10,000 ethnic Albanian civilians were killed and about 1,600 victims are still missing, mostly ethnic Albanians but also some Serbs. https://bit.ly/2N5vBhn

Philippines: call for an end to rights violations

Human Rights Watch has called on Philippine National Police Chief Dir. Gen….

Sri Lanka: excavations at mass grave

Forensic officers and archaeologists have confirmed that skulls and remains of at least 30 people, including children under the age of 12, have been found at a mass burial site in Mannar, northern Sri Lanka, JDS Lanka reports. Anti-disappearance activists and local human rights lawyers believe the grave contains bodies of Tamils allegedly abducted, tortured and killed by security forces. https://bit.ly/2yKY6hj

El Salvador: four police officers sentenced for extrajudicial killings

InSight Crime reports that four members of El Salvador’s National Civil Police have been sentenced to 60 years in prison for crimes committed on 13 February 2017 when two civilians died in what police had described as a chase and confrontation with gang members. The court concluded that the confrontation never happened, and that the narrative was used to cover up extrajudicial killings. https://bit.ly/2KlRyXT

Arbitrary arrest and Ethiopia’s culture of impunity

Human Rights Watch has…

Two Togolese among victims in Gambia migrant murder case

Human Rights Watch reports that two Togolese have recently been discovered to be among about 50 West African migrants massacred in 2005 by a paramilitary unit in The Gambia. The victims’ families have urged the Togolese government to support efforts in Ghana to investigate and prosecute the case. https://bit.ly/2Ml7LNF

Iraq: long road to justice for Yezidis

Al Monitor reports that judges in Iraq have been prosecuting Da’esh suspects under the country’s counterterrorism law, while the UN has declared the killings of Yezidis by Da’esh to be genocide and has launched an investigation into Da’esh war crimes. Pari Ibrahim, founder and executive director of the Free Yezidi Foundation, points out that In Iraq there is no law to punish genocide. https://bit.ly/2MmtGnK

EU summit on Mediterranean migration

EU leaders meeting later this week will agree to further tighten their external borders, give more support to…

 Algeria “abandons” thousands of migrants in Sahara

The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Algeria has abandoned more than 13,000 migrants in the Sahara over the past 14 months, expelling them without food or water and forcing them to walk for hours or even days. The Associated Press interviewed more than two dozen survivors of the deportations in Niger and nearly all said they saw fellow migrants collapse during the walk, where temperatures reach up to 48 degrees Celsius. They did not see the missing migrants again. https://bit.ly/2Kf5O87

Pakistan: Chief Justice orders new unit on missing persons

The Chief Justice of Pakistan, Mian Saqib Nisar, on Sunday directed law enforcement agencies to set up a special cell to ascertain information about missing persons after a large number of people, most of them women, had gathered outside the court building demanding recovery of their missing relatives, allegedly detained by law enforcement agencies, Dawn…

The Guardian: “future of politics will be dominated by migration”

The Guardian reports that a list, detailing 34,361 migrants’ deaths in past 25 years, which it published yesterday, is a reminder of people who have died in the search for a minimum level of safety, security and economic, social and cultural rights. In order to solve the migration crisis, greater political engagement and international collaboration will be required. https://bit.ly/2MKs2wW

Libyan coastguard rescues 237 migrants off Tripoli

Libya’s coastguard has rescued more than 230 undocumented migrants off the country’s northern shore, the Libyan Navy said Friday. A statement by navy forces affiliated with the National Consensus Government said 237 undocumented migrants, including women and children, were saved in two separate operations off the coast of Al-Qaraboli city, AA news reports. https://bit.ly/2KdygUI

Seeking justice in The Gambia

The Gambia’s former president Yahya Jammeh’s 22-year rule was marked by alleged disappearances, extrajudicial killings and arbitrary…

Joint Process to account for missing Mediterranean migrants

The Ansa news agency has published a detailed report on the issue of Mediterranean migration and the Joint Initiative by Cyprus, Greece, Italy and Malta, launched in Rome on 11 June, to coordinate the effort to account for missing migrants. The article highlights ICMP’s role in developing and supporting the Joint Initiative. (Article in Italian) https://bit.ly/2JWW0Qy

Migrant fatalities since the early 1990s

The Guardian reports on one NGO’s effort to document deaths of migrants travelling to Europe since the early 1990s. “We have no way of knowing the actual number of deaths, but this does show there has been a gradual and very steady increase,” says Thomas Spijkerboer, professor of Migration Law at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. He notes that migrant deaths have been occurring for 25 years “and the people who pretend to be shocked now should have been shocked a long time…

ICMP delivers more DNA reports to Bosnia and Herzegovina

An article published on the Klix.ba news portal in Bosnia and Herzegovina states that 30 DNA reports delivered to the country’s Missing Persons Institute by the International Commission on Missing (ICMP) in The Hague concern human remains exhumed from a mass grave at Koricanske stijene in Central Bosnia. Last year, 135 dead bodies were exhumed from the site and DNA findings confirmed the identities of Bosniak and Croat civilians who were massacred in August 1992. (Article in BCS) https://bit.ly/2tbPRpu

Iraq: bodies for sale

The Shafaaq news portal cites a security source from Mosul as saying that volunteers recovering human remains in the city have sold bodies of ISIS militants to their relatives.  According to the source, the price of a body starts from 2000 and can reach 5000 US$. https://bit.ly/2MJgnOS

Mali says troops implicated in killings after mass graves found

Mali’s defense minister,…

Enforced disappearances in Syria

The Spanish newspaper El Pais has published a detailed account of efforts to document human rights violations in Syria, including enforced disappearances. Amnesty International estimates that 17,723 people have died in detention centers in Syria, and that since 2011, “the Syrian government has embarked upon a campaign of arrests and forced disappearances.” https://bit.ly/2tkbzH1

Bodies found in Mali mass grave

Twenty-five bodies have been found in central Mali after the army carried out a sweep in the region, the non-government organization Kisal said on Monday. The report comes amid concern about abuse by security forces in their fight against extremists. According to Gulf News the bodies were discovered after 25 people were picked up last week by the army in localities in central Mali. A source at the Defense Ministry told AFP that an inquiry had been opened but denied “these accusations of summary executions”. https://bit.ly/2K2wMMA

43 migrants…