Nyhontso said “no African can be a foreigner in Africa. But as we all know, those who are registered and those who came to this country legally must be in the country. What we disagree with is when you can wake up and say they must just go. You can’t do that. These are Africans. And we’ve been saying no African can be a foreigner in Africa.”

ALSO READ: Residents stage Mabahambe march in Benoni

He said that current tensions needed to be understood in the context of colonial history.

“These borders that we see today are artificial borders. We were given these borders by the Berlin Conference in 1886. These are not our borders. It can happen that your roots can be traced to Congo.”

Nyhontso also questioned why migration debates appear to focus primarily on black Africans.

“The problem with this issue today is that it only affects black people. What about white people who do not have papers to be in South Africa? What about real cartels, criminals, who are coming from abroad? What about the Israelites, who are even doing business in South Africa?”

ALSO READ: Madlanga Commission casts doubt on Hawks officer’s account of 541kg cocaine case

He reminded delegates of South Africa’s history, citing the assassination of ANC leader Chris Hani.

“By the way, Chris Hani was killed by a white immigrant. How did he get to South Africa? Nobody asked him his ID. No African can be a foreigner in Africa. And no thugs can go out there and call us and tell us that is what you must do.”

Nyhontso’s comments come amid a wave of marches across Gauteng and other provinces under the banner “Mabahambe” (“they must go”), where organisers have demanded that undocumented immigrants leave South Africa.

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Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni has revealed that Cabinet has approved a comprehensive migration strategy developed by an inter-ministerial committee, as tensions between South Africans and foreign nationals continue to fuel protests across the country.

Ntshavheni, speaking during a post-Cabinet briefing on Friday, said details of the plan will be outlined by President Cyril Ramaphosa during a national address on government’s response to migration, amid growing pressure ahead of a June 30 deadline set by anti-immigration groups for undocumented migrants to leave the country.

She did not indicate when the president would address the nation.

ALSO READ: Zulu royal household rejects calls for King Misuzulu to address anti-immigration protests

“Cabinet received and approved a comprehensive approach to migration in South Africa, developed by the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Migration, and also approved the National Action Plan Country Report on Migration in South Africa,” Ntshavheni said.

She said the president would provide details of government’s coordinated response to illegal immigration following work undertaken by several departments.

“There is work that is being coordinated, as we have indicated in previous briefings, parliamentary debates and statements issued by colleagues in the justice cluster,” she said.

“Government has for a long time been engaged in efforts to deal with migration, and we have been consolidating that work. We will leave the details of this comprehensive approach to be explained and outlined by the president.”

Ntshavheni said some of the measures to be announced would include labour inspections and joint compliance operations at companies.

She, however, warned anti-immigration protesters against taking the law into their own hands, saying government would protect the constitutional right to protest but would not tolerate unlawful actions.

“South Africans have no right to take the law into their own hands and, as we have indicated before, nobody is going to shut down this country. We must be very clear about that,” she said.

The minister said government was preparing for the June 30 deadline announced by anti-immigration groups but declined to provide details, arguing that doing so could compromise law-enforcement operations.

She said further information would be provided by the president during his address.

Anti-illegal immigration group March and March has issued a list of demands to government, including a call for a halt to the processing of refugee applications as tensions rise ahead of the threatened national shutdown over undocumented foreign nationals.

ALSO READ: Malema finally gets his apology from Ngizwe Mchunu

The group said the issuing of refugee permits should be suspended until South Africa’s immigration laws are reformed.

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Each December, long-distance buses, minibus taxis and private cars stream northwards from South Africa as Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second biggest city, prepares for its annual ritual: the seasonal homecoming of “injiva” — migrants returning for Christmas.

The old industrial city, where businesses have declined and shops and restaurants struggle to survive, fills temporarily with cars with South African number plates and people dressed in trendy clothes signalling urban South African lifestyles.

Trailers are loaded with remittances known as “Christmas boxes” containing cooking oil, soap and other groceries. A jumping castle is erected in the park, and popular music merges with laughter in the restaurants.

These are historically rooted signs of achievement and success earned abroad. They are a refashioned form of the festive season of colonial-era injivas: men from the Matabeleland region of Zimbabwe who worked in South African mines and farms, returning home typically once a year with gifts.

Yet, it is common knowledge that this performance is often hard-earned, and injivas — both women and men — struggle to meet these expectations.

The real-life migration experiences include economic and legal uncertainties and discrimination in the labour market, low wages and difficulty in sending remittances home.

Amid the festive return lies a quieter and more solemn south-north movement — that of Zimbabwean migrants who have passed away and are taking their final journey home.

Contrasting with the festivities surrounding Christmas visits, the coffin-shaped trailers along the A6 highway from the Beitbridge border post to Bulawayo are a reminder that migration’s promise of prosperity comes with risk and loss.

This homecoming, which I studied for my PhD in anthropology and have described in a recent paper, is shaped by bureaucracy, cost and intergenerational care.

The study reveals how a life-sustaining web of care is maintained. It contributes to anthropological discussions on migration, kinship, the state, documentary practices, law and development.

The moral duty and economic headache of return

The migration pattern between Zimbabwe and South Africa has its roots in colonial-era labour migration and has intensified since Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980.

In the early 2000s, Zimbabwe’s economic collapse, marked by hyperinflation, political violence and mass unemployment, drove millions to seek economic opportunities and protection in South Africa.

Estimating the number of Zimbabweans in South Africa is difficult due to the largely unregulated nature of this mobility, but figures generally range between one million and three million.

Although deceased migrants, documented or not, can be buried in South African soil, bringing a body home is a vital act in Zimbabwe, as in many other African contexts.

It is to restore the deceased to the lineage and to enable the spirit to be mourned and settled so it will protect younger generations.

Failing to do so risks spiritual and social disorder. The respectful return in death, like the festive Christmas return of the able-bodied injivas, reinforces ties between generations.

Despite the religious and cultural importance of burial at home, repatriating a body from South Africa poses economic challenges to a family. It’s not only a moral duty but also a financial burden.

So, in principle, only those whose death has been unforeseen return in coffins. Those who can will return home before they die to save the cost of repatriation.

Families make extraordinary efforts to make repatriation possible.

Relatives collect and borrow money, and reach out to kin across borders. Burial societies mobilise payments from their members to collect the funds for embalming, transportation, paperwork and funerals.

These obligations reveal the importance of the ancestral continuity being an economic matter, and sustenance of family welfare continuing after death.

Formal and informal burial societies

Since the 1990s, Bulawayo’s once-thriving industries have largely collapsed, leaving its old mills and factories deserted or refunctioning as spaces for religious congregations, education and garages.

Amid these modest ventures, funeral services stand out in the city’s otherwise melancholic landscape.

As Zimbabwe’s economic and political instability pushes many to seek livelihoods in South Africa, the funeral industry has expanded. The Beitbridge border, crossing the Limpopo River between Zimbabwe and South Africa, has long organised the movement of labour and remittances, governing also the return of bodies.

Indeed, funeral parlours and burial societies date back to the colonial era when injured and dead migrants had to be sent home. Today, carrying prosperous names such as Doves, Kings & Queens and African Pride, funeral parlours function as key institutions in managing transnational death.

Besides these licensed funeral services, people belong to informal money pooling societies that mobilise money collectively to cover the cost of death. While some collect steady monthly deposits, others gather money ad hoc during emergencies.

These societies blur boundaries between formal and informal systems.

Many “undocumented” migrants, who cannot have bank accounts, participate through friends or relatives with legal status, contributing to pooled funds tracked via mobile communication apps and bank transfer receipts. Societies sustain solidarity networks, and transparent contributions signal both moral and financial responsibility, shaping participants’ social standing.

Bureaucracies of transnational death

Between the death and the burial, numerous legal and bureaucratic steps must be completed, from obtaining death certificates and health clearances to coordinating with South African and Zimbabwean authorities.

Often, identity documents from Zimbabwe need to be collected to prove that the deceased is a Zimbabwean national. When the deceased has not revealed their identity to the South African authorities and remains “undocumented”, or has two legal identities, the disparity needs to be explained in an affidavit.

These administrative steps are not simply procedural; they are part of the politics of death. The paperwork that allows a body to move, such as a stamp, a signature, or an affidavit, is both a form of recognition and a reminder of inequality. While some deaths can move across borders with relative ease, others become delayed or trapped in institutional procedures.

Bureaucracy is a space where care, legality and belonging intertwine. State officials may draw not only on formal guidelines but also their cultural logics of care. They are central in navigating the legal and bureaucratic challenges. Immigration officers might be sympathetic and share the cultural understanding of the importance of returning home respectably.

The homecoming of the dead mirrors, in reverse, the December journeys of the living. Both are seasonal movements that bind families across generations, space and time. The same routes that carried migrants south in search of work now carry their bodies northward, accompanied by papers, payments and prayers.

In the end, the bureaucracies that regulate transnational death are not merely state procedures, but central to how families remake connection, dignity and belonging under precarious conditions.

Saana Hansen is a Postdoctoral Researcher in Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Helsinki.

This article was first published by The Conversation.

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Awale is one of 165 Somali migrants recently repatriated after being detained in Libya, where the International Organization for Migration says those caught on journeys to Europe face “unacceptable and inhumane conditions.”

Awale undertook a more than 5,000-kilometer (3,100-mile) journey, leaving Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, to cross Kenya, Uganda, South Sudan and Sudan.

He was captured by smugglers near the Sudan-Libyan border and taken to the Sahara oasis town of Kufra, where captors filmed him being tortured in a bid to extract a ransom from his family.

“Torture became normal,” Awale said. “If you failed to pay, they beat you until you fainted. Some people lost their minds. Others didn’t survive.”

Unable to afford the ransom, his mother, Hawo Elmo Rage, turned to social media, pleading with Somalis at home and abroad to help her save her son.

“They told me to send the money or they would take his life,” Rage said. She ultimately raised $17,000, enough to free him.

Awale was released from Kufra and put in a car bound for the Mediterranean coast with other migrants. After their vehicle broke down, the group trekked for more than two weeks, facing starvation and dehydration.

“I thought we would die there,” Awale said.

The group was then detained outside of Tripoli, and Awale spent a month in prison in the coastal town of Sirte and another two months in detention in Tripoli before his repatriation to Somalia in November.

Awale became one of hundreds of thousands of Somalis that have fled the country in more than three decades of civil war, according to UNHCR, the U.N. refugee agency, which estimates that another 3.5 million people are displaced within Somalia itself.

While most Somali refugees live in neighboring countries like Kenya, according to UNHCR, many like Awale have been inspired to seek a future in the West. Awale said that he dreamed of moving to the U.S. since he was a child.

“I want him to stay,” his mother said. “But I know he wishes for a better life. I pray God gives him a safe future— not the dangerous one he found.”

Changes to immigration policy this year under Trump administration changed the calculus of migrants like Awale. U.S. President Donald Trump banned travel to the U.S. by citizens of Somalia and 11 other countries in June — so Awale set his sights on Europe.

Awale remains hopeful that he will reach the U.S. one day, despite anti-Somali sentiment from the White House and a further tightening of immigration restrictions for Somalis.

The White House also announced this week that it was pausing all immigration applications for people from 19 countries, including Somalia.

“My dream was America, but I felt like Trump closed that door,” Awale said. “Maybe after Trump’s term ends.”

AP

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He had spent almost a year trying to reach Europe. He said he was attacked by police and scammed for money as he crossed Mali, Algeria and Niger, at one point limping past corpses in the desert. After seeing fellow migrants die from hunger and exhaustion, he gave up.

He is among tens of thousands of Africans returning home with the help of the International Organization for Migration, as Europe spends millions of dollars to deter migrants before they reach its shores. The European Union-funded IOM program pays for return flights and promises follow-up assistance.

But migrants tell The Associated Press that promises by the United Nations-affiliated organization are not fulfilled, leaving them to face trauma, debt and family shame on their own. Desperation could fuel new migration attempts.

The AP spoke to three returnees in Gambia and four in Guinea, and was shown a WhatsApp group of over 50 members founded around returnees’ frustration with the IOM. They described months of reaching out to the IOM with no reply.

Diallo said he told the IOM he wanted to start a small business. But all he has received is a phone number for an IOM counselor and a five-day orientation course on accountability, management and personal development. He said many returnees had trouble grasping it because of low education levels.

“Even yesterday, I called him,” Diallo said. “They said for the moment, we have to wait until they call us. Every time, if I call them, that’s what they tell me.” He said he asked for medical help with a foot injured on his migration attempt but was told it was impossible.

As the oldest child of a single mother, the responsibility for supporting relatives weighs heavily.

“If there’s not so much money, you’re the head of the family too,” he said.

Millions spent but little scrutiny

The IOM program is financed almost completely by the EU and was launched in 2016. Between 2022 and 2025, it repatriated over 100,000 sub-Saharan migrants from north Africa and Niger.

Of the $380 million budget for that period, 58% is allocated for post-return assistance, the IOM said.

Francois Xavier Ada with the IOM regional office in West Africa told the AP that over 90,000 returnees have started, and 60,000 completed, the reintegration process “tailored to individual needs.” Ada said that can “support anything from housing, medical assistance or psychosocial services to business grants, vocational trainings and job placement.”

Migrants told the AP they had not received any of those.

Ada said the IOM was ”concerned” to learn of people kept waiting and “happy to look into these cases.” He added that delays can occur due to high caseloads or incomplete documentation, and medical assistance is not guaranteed.

Experts said there is little insight into how the EU money helps returnees. The European Court of Auditors, an EU body, audited the program’s first phase between 2016 and 2021 and said it failed to demonstrate sustainable reintegration results, monitoring was “insufficient to prove results” and the EU “could not prove value for money.”

European Council on Refugees and Exiles. “The question of how this support actually helps people in very vulnerable situations receives very little public scrutiny, which is due to the fact that there is such a lack of transparency and accountability of how EU funding works outside the EU.”

The EU did not respond to questions on the details of the budget beyond repeating IOM statements.

Moustapha Darboe, a Gambian journalist who interviewed over 50 returnees for an investigation into the IOM program, said they had to wait a long time, often almost a year, and support they eventually received did not match their skills and ambitions.

“The IOM is donor-based,” he told the AP. “Their primary focus is not to help these people, their primary focus is to tick their box.”

Haunted by shame and stigma

The IOM program has coincided with Europe’s other efforts to deter migration, including paying some African governments to intercept migrants, an approach denounced by human rights groups that accuse African authorities of being complicit in abuses.

Europe’s efforts appear to be working. In the first eight months of 2025, it recorded 112,000 “irregular” crossings, over 20% less than the same period last year, and a drop of over 50% from two years ago.

Experts say that while the IOM’s return program helps to extract people from inhumane treatment, the promised follow-up support is often impossible to deliver as most migrants’ home countries have poorly functioning state services.

“The major missing piece is the support for the returnees to get reintegrated, have access to social protection and to labor markets,” said Camille Le Coz, director of the Brussels-based Migration Policy Institute.

Kabinet Kante, a 20-year-old from Guinea who dreamed of being a footballer in Germany, spent almost two years trying to reach Europe. He said he was intercepted at sea and dumped in the desert, and still wakes at night screaming.

He returned to Guinea in July with the IOM’s help. He said he wanted to learn how to drive a bulldozer but the IOM has ignored his calls, and when he went to their office, they told him to stop calling.

He set up the WhatsApp group for over 50 other returned and frustrated migrants. He also records TikTok videos warning against the treacherous route to Europe.

But he has no way to pay back his parents, who supported his journey by sending money to pay smugglers and bribe officials.

“Right now, I am doing nothing,” he said, head bowed with embarrassment.

‘Going on an adventure’
Like many sub-Saharan African countries, Guinea has rich natural resources, including the world’s largest iron ore deposits. But experts say bad governance and exploitation by foreign companies have left most of the population destitute.

Over half of Guinea’s population of 15 million is experiencing “unprecedented levels of poverty,” according to the World Food Program, and cannot read or write. The official monthly minimum wage is less than $65. Most people work in the informal economy and earn even less.

“Those with degrees work as taxi drivers here,” Diallo said. “If there were, like elsewhere, job opportunities in the country, everyone would stay here.”

Diallo and Kante said they are not planning on “going on an adventure” any time soon — a term used widely to describe the migration route to Europe.

But that’s mostly because they don’t have money. They dream of working in Europe legally, but the visa process can cost hundreds of dollars, and applicants from sub-Saharan countries have a high rejection rate.

Elhadj Mohamed Diallo, director of the Guinean Organization for the Fight Against Irregular Migration, is a former migrant who reached Libya before turning back. He now works with the IOM on reintegration activities but indicated doubt about their ability to prevent returnees from migrating again.

He said he doesn’t blame them as life at home becomes more difficult.

“We aren’t helping them so that they can stay. We are helping them so they can take control of their lives again,” he said. “Migration is a natural thing. Blocking a person is like blocking the tide. When you block water, the water will find its way.”

AP

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The International Organization for Migration said the displaced fled from several towns and villages in the area of Bara in North Kordofan province between Friday and Sunday.

Kordofan has been one of two areas, along with the western Darfur region, that recently became the epicenter of the war between the Sudanese army and its rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, or RSF.

Attacks in recent weeks in Darfur, where the RSF captured the key city of el-Fasher left hundreds dead and forced tens of thousands to flee to overcrowded camps to escape reported atrocities by the paramilitary force, according to aid groups and U.N. officials.

The war between the RSF and the military began in 2023, when tensions erupted between the two former allies that were meant to oversee a democratic transition after a 2019 uprising. The fighting has killed at least 40,000 people, according to the World Health Organization, and displaced 12 million. However, aid groups say the true death toll could be many times higher.

In late October, RSF fighters launched attacks in the town of Bara in North Kordofan, killing at least 47 people, including women and children, Sudan Doctors Network said at the time.

People in North Kordofan have been fleeing from several villages and towns, including Bara, Sheikhan, ArRahad, Um Rawaba, Um Siala and Sakra, with an estimated 38,990 people fleeing between Oct. 26 and Nov. 9, according to the IOM.

The displaced were mostly headed north, toward the Sudanese capital of Khartoum and the adjacent Omdurman region, and the area of Sheikan in North Kordofan.

Also Monday, the RSF claimed its fighters arrived in the town of Babanusa in West Kordofan province “in huge numbers” and were making their way toward the army headquarters in the town since the previous day.

Salah Semsaya, a volunteer with the local initiative Emergency Response Rooms, told The Associated Press that other volunteers from the town of Babanusa working with charity kitchens in the area reported a decline in the number of families coming to get food — apparently an indication that many had left or fled the area. Definitive figures could not be confirmed.

Darfur atrocities

In Darfur meanwhile, Sudan Doctors Network reported on Sunday that the RSF collected hundreds of bodies from street in the city of el-Fasher and buried some in mass graves while burning others .

The paramilitary forces were acting in a “desperate attempt to conceal evidence of their crimes against civilians,” the network said.

Previously, satellite images analyzed on Friday appeared to show the RSF disposing of bodies after they seized and rampaged through el-Fasher. Images by the Colorado-based firm Vantor show a fire at the Saudi hospital in el-Fasher on Thursday, near a collection of white objects seen days earlier in other Vantor photos.

The Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Lab described the images as showing the “burning of objects that may be consistent with bodies.”

-AP

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German voters are choosing a new government in an election Sunday dominated by worries about the years-long stagnation of Europe’s biggest economy, pressure to curb migration and growing uncertainty over the future of Ukraine and Europe’s alliance with the United States.

The center-right opposition is favored to win, while polls point to the strongest result for a far-right party since World War II.

Germany is the most populous country in the 27-nation European Union and a leading member of NATO. It has been Ukraine’s second-biggest weapons supplier, after the U.S. It will be central to shaping the continent’s response to the challenges of the coming years, including the Trump administration’s confrontational foreign and trade policy.

The top candidates, conservative front-runner Friedrich Merz and current Chancellor Olaf Scholz of the Social Democrats, voted within minutes of each other in different parts of the country on Sunday morning.

More than 59 million people in the nation of 84 million are eligible to elect the 630 members of the lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, who will take their seats under the glass dome of Berlin’s landmark Reichstag building.

Germany’s electoral system rarely produces absolute majorities, and no party looks anywhere near one this time. It’s expected that two or more parties will form a coalition, following potentially difficult negotiations that will take weeks or even months before the Bundestag elects the next chancellor.

This election is taking place seven months before it was originally planned after center-left Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition collapsed in November, three years into a term that was increasingly marred by infighting. There’s widespread discontent and not much enthusiasm for any of the candidates.

Center-right opposition leader Friedrich Merz’s Union bloc has consistently led polls, with 28-32% support in the most recent surveys, and Merz is favored to replace Scholz. Scholz’s Social Democrats have been polling between 14-16%, which would be their worst postwar result in a national parliamentary election.

The far-right, anti-immigration Alternative for Germany, or AfD, has been running in second place with around 20% of the vote — well above its previous best of 12.6% in a national election, from 2017 — and has fielded its first candidate for chancellor in Alice Weidel. But other parties say they won’t work with it, a stance often known as the “firewall.”

The environmentalist Greens also are running for the top job, with outgoing Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck, but have been polling a little behind Scholz’s party.

Merz has pledged “stability instead of chaos” after Scholz’s three-party coalition collapsed following long-running internal arguments, including over how to revitalize the economy.

But it’s unclear whether the conservative leader, if he wins, will be able to put together a stable government that does much better. Merz hopes for a two-party coalition, but may end up needing a third partner to form a government.

The realistic candidates to join a Merz government are Scholz’s Social Democrats, the Greens and the pro-business Free Democrats — who were the smallest partner in Scholz’s collapsed government and may not manage to stay in parliament.

The Free Democrats and another small party are hovering at around 5% of the vote, the threshold to qualify for seats in parliament. If they do, there may be no majority for a two-party coalition.

The contenders have made contrasting proposals to turn around the German economy, which has shrunk for the past two years and hasn’t managed real growth in much longer. That’s going to be a central job for the new government.

Migration moved to the forefront of the campaign in the past month following deadly attacks committed by immigrants.

Merz vowed to bar people from entering the country without proper papers and to step up deportations if he is elected chancellor. He then brought a nonbinding motion calling for many more migrants to be turned back at Germany’s borders. Parliament approved it by a narrow majority thanks to AfD votes — a first in postwar Germany.

Rivals made Merz’s attitude toward AfD, which generated protests, an issue. Scholz accused Merz of “irresponsible gambling” and breaking a taboo. Merz has rejected those accusations, saying that he didn’t and won’t work with AfD. He has repeatedly and categorically said since that his party will “never” do so.

Mainstream parties have vowed to keep up support for Ukraine in its war against Russia. And after the Scholz government reached a NATO target of spending 2% of gross domestic product on defense, the next administration will have to find a way to keep that going — and likely expand it, in the face of U.S. demands — once a special 100 billion-euro ($105 billion) fund to modernize the military is used up in 2027.

AP

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The Berlin International Film Festival kicked off on Thursday with the world premiere of Tom Tykwer’s “The Light,” a timely tale of a dysfunctional German family and a Syrian refugee.

The festival known as the Berlinale this year comes against the backdrop of Germany’s parliament elections. For Tykwer, it’s the third time he has opened the festival although his most recent success has come in the form of hit TV show “Babylon Berlin.”

“The Light” infuses drama, political and social commentary, song and dance — and a migration storyline that Tykwer says he didn’t know would be so relevant when he started working on the movie three years ago.

“Now that it aligns with the elections and the elections are riding on the subject so violently, of course, I feel (strongly) that this movie has a really strong position about it,” he told The Associated Press.

Nineteen films will compete in the main competition lineup, with the Golden Bear winner to be announced at the closing gala on Feb. 22.

The role of politics

Germany’s national election on Feb. 23, the final day of the Berlinale, is being held seven months early, after Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s governing coalition collapsed in a dispute about how to revitalize the country’s economy.

Efforts to curb migration have emerged as a central issue in the campaign — along with the question of how to handle the challenge from the far-right Alternative for Germany, which appears to be on course for its strongest national election result yet.

Politics remained front and center at a news conference with this year’s Berlinale international jury, headed up by American director Todd Haynes.

And despite an air of pessimism around today’s global politics, there was positivity around the role of cinema.

Haynes said the Berlinale “has always had a strength of conviction and an openness to challenging and political discourse and bringing that into the filmmaking.”

“What’s happening in the world right now has put an extra urgency to all of that,” he added.

Franco-Moroccan director and jury member Nabil Ayouch added that people need strong creative voices. “We have to be radical. We have to be strong in our choices, in our movies,” he said.

Five films to watch

“Blue Moon” is set during the opening night of the musical “Oklahoma!” and marks director Richard Linklater’s return to the Berlinale for the first time since “Boyhood” premiered at the festival in 2014.

Starring long-time collaborator Ethan Hawke and Margaret Qualley of “The Substance,” the movie is competing for the Golden Bear.

Rose Byrne stars in ‘“If I had Legs I’d Kick You” alongside A$AP Rocky and this year’s Oscar host Conan O’Brien.

The anxiety inducing dramedy from Mary Bronstein, follows Byrne’s character Linda as an exhausted working mum surrounded by a revolving group of unhelpful bystanders, colleagues and family. After a hit Sundance world premiere, the movie gets to join the Berlinale’s competition lineup.

Jessica Chastain reunites with Mexican director Michel Franco in the drama “Dreams,” about a young Mexican ballet dancer played by real-life dancer Isaac Hernández. Chastain plays a wealthy socialite who finds her young lover has moved illegally to San Francisco to pursue both her and his dancing dreams.

Emma Mackey and Vicky Krieps star in playwright Rebecca LenkiewIcz’s directorial debut “Hot Milk,” also a hot contender. Based on Deborah Levy’s book of the same name, it’s the story of a girl who meets a free-spirited traveler when she takes her mother to consult a healer about her mystery illness in a Spanish seaside town.

And Marion Cotillard plays an actress shooting a film adaptation of Hans Christina Anderson’s fairytale “The Snow Queen” in Lucile Hadžihalilović’s 70s-set French fantasy drama, “The Ice Tower.”

Fangirl favorites

Though politics may play a part, some Berliners may be simply hoping to catch a glimpse of their favorite stars.

Timothee Chalamet will undoubtedly cause a stoir the Palast red carpet for the German premiere of his award-winning biopic “A Complete Unknown” on Friday — a final push before the Oscars where Chalamet is up for best actor for his portrayal of Bob Dylan.

Jacob Elordi is also likely to attract a strong fan turnout when he premieres the new TV series “The Narrow Road to the Deep North” at the festival.

Justin Kurzel’s much anticipated drama about a World War II hero haunted by his experiences in a Japanese prisoner of war camp has it’s red carpet debut on Saturday.

Robert Pattinson will also hit the Berlinale carpet on the same day for a special screening of Bong Joon-Ho’s long-awaited follow-up to “Parasite.”

In “Mickey 17,” a sci-fi comedy, Pattinson plays a space traveler who is sure to bring out fans braving Berlin’s sub-zero temperatures this February.

AP

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Niger’s junta has signed a decree revoking a 2015 law that was enacted to curb the smuggling of migrants traveling from African countries through a key migration route in Niger en route to Europe, according to a government circular issued on Monday.

“The convictions pronounced pursuant to said law and their effects shall be cancelled,” Niger’s junta leader, Gen. Abdourahmane Tchiani, said in a Nov. 25 decree, a copy of which was seen Monday by The Associated Press.

All those convicted under the law would be considered for release by the Ministry of Justice, Ibrahim Jean Etienne, the secretary general of the justice ministry said in the circular.

The revocation of the law adds a new twist to growing political tensions between Niger and EU countries that sanctioned the West African nation in response to the July coup that deposed its democratically elected president and brought the junta into power.

Niger’s Agadez region is a gateway from West Africa to the Sahara and it has been a key route both for Africans trying to reach Libya to cross the Mediterranean to Europe and for those who are returning home with help from the United Nations.

But the route has also become a lucrative place for people smugglers, prompting Niger’s government, working with the European Union, to sign the 2015 law to stop the movement of at least 4,000 migrants which the U.N. estimates travel through Agadez every week without travel documents.

The law empowered security forces and the courts to prosecute smugglers who faced up to five years in prison if convicted.

While the law transformed Niger into a migration hub housing thousands of migrants being returned to their countries, the U.N. human rights office has also noted that it “led migrants to seek increasingly dangerous migratory routes, leading to increased risks of human rights violations.”

Following the July 26 coup, which deposed Niger’s President Mohamed Bazoum, Western and European countries suspended aid for health, security and infrastructure needs to the country, which relies heavily on foreign support as one of the least developed nations in the world.

Rather than deter the soldiers who deposed Bazoum, the sanctions have resulted in economic hardship for Nigeriens and emboldened the junta. It has set up a transitional government that could remain in power for up to three years.

AP

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Niger’s junta has signed a decree revoking a 2015 law that was enacted to curb the smuggling of migrants traveling from African countries through a key migration route in Niger en route to Europe, according to a government circular issued on Monday.

“The convictions pronounced pursuant to said law and their effects shall be cancelled,” Niger’s junta leader, Gen. Abdourahmane Tchiani, said in a Nov. 25 decree, a copy of which was seen Monday by The Associated Press. All those convicted under the law would be considered for release by the Ministry of Justice, Ibrahim Jean Etienne, the secretary general of the justice ministry said in the circular.

The revocation of the law adds a new twist to growing political tensions between Niger and EU countries that sanctioned the West African nation in response to the July coup that deposed its democratically elected president and brought the junta into power.Niger’s Agadez region is a gateway from West Africa to the Sahara and it has been a key route both for Africans trying to reach Libya to cross the Mediterranean to Europe and for those who are returning home with help from the United Nations.But the route has also become a lucrative place for people smugglers, prompting Niger’s government, working with the European Union, to sign the 2015 law to stop the movement of at least 4,000 migrants which the U.N. estimates travel through Agadez every week without travel documents.The law empowered security forces and the courts to prosecute smugglers who faced up to five years in prison if convicted.

While the law transformed Niger into a migration hub housing thousands of migrants being returned to their countries, the U.N. human rights office has also noted that it “led migrants to seek increasingly dangerous migratory routes, leading to increased risks of human rights violations.”Following the July 26 coup, which deposed Niger’s President Mohamed Bazoum, Western and European countries suspended aid for health, security and infrastructure needs to the country, which relies heavily on foreign support as one of the least developed nations in the world.Rather than deter the soldiers who deposed Bazoum, the sanctions have resulted in economic hardship for Nigeriens and emboldened the junta. It has set up a transitional government that could remain in power for up to three years.

AP

The post Niger’s junta revokes a key law that had slowed migration for Africans desperate to reach Europe appeared first on Inside Politic.