WATCH: World Refugee Day - UK asylum candidates to be tagged electronically

Refugee children sit in a classroom in a building converted into refugee accommodation housing around 1,200 people, in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. EPA/BORIS ROESSLER

Refugee children sit in a classroom in a building converted into refugee accommodation housing around 1,200 people, in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. EPA/BORIS ROESSLER

Published Jun 20, 2022

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Cape Town - With more than 100 million people displaced from around the world due to conflict, violence, and in search of safety, here are some of the stories and events from around the world.

According to the BBC, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said asylum claimants who arrive in the UK would be electronically tagged to “make sure asylum seekers can’t just vanish into the rest of the country”.

Those seeking asylum reportedly arrive in the UK on small boats or in the back of trucks, with Johnson’s electronic tagging system coming days after his attempt to deport refugees on a flight to Rwanda.

“There has been an unprecedented growth in irregular migration through unnecessary and dangerous routes,” said the UK’s Home Office.

“A 12-month pilot will operate and will test whether electronic monitoring (EM) is an effective means by which to improve and maintain regular contact with asylum claimants who arrive in the UK,” it said.

Johnson added that he was proud of what the UK had done to welcome people into the country and that it is “a very generous and welcoming country”.

“Just in the last years since I’ve been prime minister, we’ve had more than 100,000 people come from Hong Kong, 15,000 Afghans, and many coming from Syria, and now well over 120,000 visas given to the people from Ukraine,” said Johnson.

— UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency (@Refugees) June 19, 2022

Meanwhile, as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) celebrates World Refugee Day, it says “seeking an asylum is a human right, it’s non-negotiable”.

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