People crossing the Mediterranean sea wait for aid from the Italian Coast Guard in May 2017. NurPhoto/SIPA USA/PA Images. All Rights Reserved.
As a British citizen and researcher working on the Mediterranean migration crisis in Europe, my nationality was once a problem. I would try to hide it whilst conducting my research in Lampedusa, Puglia, and northern Italy so as to not feel guilty about my inability to help asylum seekers who pleaded with me to assist them in getting to the UK. That was then, when the UK was, as one Nigerian asylum seeker told me, “a kind of Canada…. a country which represented freedom”. Then Brexit happened. Now things are different. Forced migrants from Eritrea, Syria, Somalia, Ghana, Nigeria and other countries no longer want to go to the UK to claim asylum. Sweden and Germany are the main destination countries now.
