This week horrendous floods caused havoc in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, home to almost 11 million people. The flooding left as much damage as Hurricane Katrina. More than 100 people died.
According to the Guardian, “at least 232,125 people have left their homes: 67,542 are in shelters, and 164,583 are homeless or temporarily staying with family or friends. Cities such as Eldorado do Sul and Roca Sales were partly flooded, and some villages were devastated”.
For some victims, this is the third time they have been flooded in the last year. This is not normal. Some may return to their homes when the floods subside, but others may decide, as they have lost everything, to seek a new place to live. But where will they go? Awful flooding has also caused havoc in Kenya and Afghanistan this week. Extreme weather like this can be expected more often as climate change accelerates.
In the middle of the Indian Ocean, the beautiful islands of the Maldives face the massive threat of rising sea levels. 80% of their land is less than 0.5 metres above sea level. The islands have already run out of fresh water and now need to use expensive desalination plants. As sea levels rise, these people will become climate refugees.
All over the world people are moving in response to wars, discrimination, extreme weather, loss of crops and hunger. How are we responding to it?
On Wednesday, I went to a demonstration outside the Millsands Home Office Building in response to the Government’s Rwanda Bill. About a hundred people gathered early in the morning, with banners spread on the pavement for those inside the building to read. The message was loud and clear, “Refugees are welcome here.”
Here’s the video. (Long listen, do come bask to it when you have time to watch!)
The demonstration was supported by Migrants Organise, SYMAAG, Assist, Sheffield City of Sanctuary, Anti Raids Network, Solidarity Knows No Borders and many other groups.
Sarli Nana Regional Migrant Organiser, Yorkshire & the Humber Region said “We will not let the Government demonise people. We will not let the Government divide us. We will not let the Government deport our friends and neighbours.”
He continued “The Rwanda Deportation Act has been ruled unlawful by the British Supreme Court. It has been condemned by the United Nations. It is immoral, inhumane and goes against International Law. It is costing lots of money that could have been used for other useful things. In Sheffield, people go to Food Banks to get food. So why can’t the Government use this money to support people?”
“The Rwanda Bill is an election scam. They are celebrating sending one person to Rwanda. One person has allegedly volunteered to go to Rwanda. Does it make any sense? But the Rwanda Scam is part of the Hostile Immigration System. Some people say the Immigration System is broken. It is not broken. It is hostile by design. It is designed to be inhumane. It is designed to oppress people.”
Dr Lucy Mayblin, a Researcher into the politics of Asylum at Sheffield University for 18 years explained “At the start when people were being dispersed to squalid housing and the Home Office would change their phone numbers once a month so we couldn’t get them help and information. It seemed completely dystopian and I thought it couldn’t possibly get any worse. But they have got worse. This is because Conservative politicians think that the British public is racist. They think they can win more elections and get more power for themselves if they do more racist policies. They think we want border policies that punish people even for arriving here to seek refuge.”
“The Rwanda Bill is bad because it treats people like they are not human beings, like cargo or animals or waste products that can just be transported somewhere around the world at the Government’s whim. It denies human beings their human rights. Human Rights Conventions were devised exactly to stop fascist governments from doing cruel and evil things without accountability. But the UK Government is carrying on with the Rwanda Plan …so we have to be their conscience and we have to say “not in our name”.
“We’re here to say to the people in this building, wake up and don’t comply with the Rwanda plan.”
Many speakers mocked the Government for legislating that Rwanda is a safe country when it clearly is not. Indeed the Home Office has accepted a refugee from Rwanda! Rwanda is deeply involved in the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, funding the M23 militia army. This has led to 8 million displaced people and an estimated half million deaths all to secure the precious metals corporations want to mine in Congo. This of course has caused many to flee and seek sanctuary elsewhere.
Matthew Carr, author of Fortress Europe, said “No one has produced a shred of evidence that this policy will work. No one has explained how people prepared to risk death by crossing the channel will be deterred from coming to the UK to seek asylum by the threat of sending them to Rwanda. At the moment, the Government plans to send up to 5700 people to Rwanda. In 2016/18 the Israeli Government sent 4000 migrants to Rwanda and Uganda in a similar scheme. By 2018 nearly all of them had left. So if these men and women could not build new lives in Rwanda what makes the UK Government believe that people we send from here will be able to do it?
The Government are scapegoating the most vulnerable members of our society as a diversionary technique to deflect scrutiny away from themselves, the real culprits who have made most people’s lives far more difficult for the last 14 years, whilst fueling the climate crisis which is now causing migration to accelerate.
If you have some spare time many of these organisations need volunteers to help support those threatened with deportation. You can contact them here.
Fresh Grassroots Rainbow Community FGRC
Student Action for Refugees (STAR)
What’s it like to be a refugee in the UK?
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