Some 137 migrants picked up overnight in rescue operations off the Libyan coast are waiting for a safe port to come ashore. Seven migrants, including two new-born babies, have already been evacuated to Lampedusa for medical reasons.
Toll-free phone numbers and slashed waiting times for an appointment with asylum application services… Those are just some of the recommendations that Paris’s administrative court on Tuesday handed the French government in a bid to improve the Paris region’s failing migrant services.
16 migrants were found in a sealed trailer on a ferry traveling from France to Ireland on Thursday. The migrants were reportedly all in good health.
The Spanish humanitarian organization Proactiva Open Arms rescued 73 migrants from a distressed boat in the Mediterranean early Thursday morning. Some of the migrants were severely injured, the NGO said.
The humanitarian rescue vessel Ocean Viking picked up 94 migrants on Tuesday after the boat they were traveling on encountered distress at sea. The rescued migrants include women and children.
As of next year, France will introduce quotas for migrant workers and impose stricter rules on asylum seekers’ access to French healthcare. While the government argues the measures will provide France with the type of workers it actually needs and curb the “misuse” of its generous welfare system, critics say it’s a move to appease right-wing voters by tightening its immigration rules even further.
The migrants were travelling in an overcrowded boat. They were towed ashore Monday. According to Cyprus police, most of them were from Syria. Two Syrian men suspected of people smuggling were arrested.
Migrant arrivals to Greece continue unabated: Nearly 800 migrants crossed from Turkey to Greece in just 48 hours this week, marking the highest pace of arrivals in 40 months. The Council of Europe during a visit to migrant camps on the Greek islands warned of an explosive situation and described living conditions there as 'horrible.'
A five-year-old boy was killed on the Greek island of Lesvos after he was hit by a truck near the Moria refugee camp. Migrant arrivals have spiked in recent weeks despite increased controls.
Close to 21,000 unregistered Syrian refugees and "illegal migrants" have been expelled from Istanbul since mid-July after the authorities had issued a deadline for them to leave the city and return to the provinces where they had registered. An additional 300,000 Syrians living in Istanbul face expulsion.
France, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, Portugal and Romania have agreed to take in the 356 migrants on board the rescue ship. The ship received permission to disembark the migrants in Malta.
The number of refugees in the world has hit a record of 70 million, the United Nations said in a statement. That’s the highest figure since World War II.