'Travel now, pay later' schemes offered by smugglers seem to be increasing the risks to migrants and refugees, especially in parts of Africa. One of the dangers is being kidnapped for ransom, a business that thrives in lawless regions and traps migrants with no way out.
In 2015, more than a million people fled to Europe, making it a record year for migration. But a lot has changed since then. As 2019 gets underway, fewer and fewer people are attempting to get to Europe by irregular means.
Asylum seekers from Turkey have much higher levels of education than the average among migrants in Germany. More than 10,600 Turkish nationals applied for asylum in Germany in 2018 – nearly half of them said they already had university degrees.
More than 16,000 migrants were returned home from Libya in 2018 under a voluntary return program run by the UN's migration agency, the IOM. Many of them had tried - and failed - to cross the Mediterranean to Europe.
More than 1,000 Ghanaians have been assisted to return home under a program run by the UN migration agency IOM since 2017. The IOM says it offers people the chance to go home 'with dignity', as well as helping them to reintegrate.
The civilian rescue vessel Sea Watch 3, which was detained in Italy on Friday, is the latest of such boats to stop operations in the central Mediterranean. Now, only the Libyan Coast Guard is able to save migrants risking their lives at sea in an attempt to reach Europe from North Africa.
Refugees and other migrants hardly ever choose a destination country based on their understanding of the asylum system or migration policies there, or how much financial support they would get. Instead, family, friends and people smugglers, plus a fair amount of chance, are what determine a migrant’s destination.
Figures seen by DW show how many people were caught by the German Federal Police after they entered the country irregularly between January and November 2018. The total number is probably higher.
An Australian singer-songwriter, Amy Shark, says two people were discovered hiding in the luggage compartment of her tour bus traveling from Brussels. The pair were reportedly migrants trying to reach Britain.
The Libyan prime minister has called on those concerned about the country's migrant camps to help by taking in, or taking back, migrants. This follows comments from Austria's president that refugees should not be sent back to Libya, where tens of thousands of people are detained in terrible conditions.
As public hostility grows towards Syrian refugees in Turkey, the authorities there have been accused of forcing Syrians back across the border. If the accusations are true, Turkey is breaching international law and jeopardizing its relationship with the European Union.
Thousands of refugees and migrants in Germany are seeking missing relatives. The German Red Cross says 2,291 new requests were received by its missing persons search service last year. The main countries of origin of those searching were Afghanistan, Syria, Somalia and Eritrea.