In a massive police operation across Europe, the suspected ringleader of a network suspected of trafficking up to 10,000 people on small boats across the English Channel has been arrested alongside 38 other suspects. Almost half of the suspects were detained in Germany.
Law enforcement agency Europol said in a press statement that it conducted a joint action day exploring the danger of exploitation which Ukrainian refugee women can be exposed to. Several potential human traffickers were identified as part of the coordinated effort.
Cartoonist Hossein Rezaei was evacuated on one of the last planes leaving Afghanistan before the Taliban seized power. For the past 10 years, he has been using his drawings to document life in his home country.
Authorities in Germany and the Netherlands have raided accommodation centers where migrant workers are being kept in squalid conditions by unscrupulous employers. Police also confirmed that some are being smuggled in illegally from Eastern Europe.
Hossien Rezaye arrived in Amsterdam on one of the final flights out of Kabul. A combination of timing and luck allowed him a narrow escape from the Taliban as the extremists encroached on Afghanistan's capital. He was evacuated to the Netherlands with help from The Cartoon Movement – an Amsterdam-based NGO – and the Dutch Foreign Ministry.
A giant puppet of a young refugee girl is part of "The Walk," an art initiative that traveled 8,000 kilometers in support of refugees. She is now a special guest at the Open Festival in the Netherlands.
An Eritrean man accused of running a camp in Libya and subjecting migrants to "severe beatings, kidnapping, rape and or unlawful deprivation of liberty," has been put on a wanted list in the Netherlands. He has already been sentenced to life imprisonment in absentia in Ethiopia for similar crimes.
Germany and the Netherlands reversed course and decided to allow failed Afghan asylum seekers to stay temporarily amid the growing conflict in Afghanistan.
Journalist Ingeborg Beugel was arrested on the small Greek island of Hydra earlier this month for sheltering a young Afghan man. If charged and convicted, she could face up to a year in prison. She says the accusations against her are unjustified, and that the young man she housed should be considered a refugee, not an illegal migrant.
Humanitarian rescue organizations are accusing a supply ship, the Vos Triton, of participating in what they call an "illegal pushback" to Libya, in which migrants rescued from a drifting boat were handed over to the Libyan coast guard.
A Syrian NGO based in the United States has filed a case with the International Criminal Court (ICC) to demand an investigation into alleged abuse and mistreatment of refugees by Greek authorities.
"Traded Children" (Handelsware Kind) is a new documentary from Germany’s public broadcaster ARD / RBB. It investigates the story behind the trafficking of minors and young adults who are being regularly traded like goods from Vietnam to Europe.