The Open Arms Uno has started disembarking 402 rescued migrants and refugees in Messina, southern Italy. Also on board is the body of a young Eritrean migrant allegedly killed by a smuggler. The charity operating the ship said he would now be given a proper burial.
There are more than 6 million migrants and refugees in East Africa and the Horn of Africa, according to UN migration agency IOM. Just over 50% of them are women and girls. Uganda, Kenya and Ethiopia all host more than one million foreign citizens. More than 10 million people in the region have been internally displaced.
At least 95 refugees from various African countries and Syria have arrived in Italy on a UNHCR charter flight. The migrants were victims of torture and other serious forms of abuse.
In front of the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in the Tunisian capital, dozens of migrants have been camping for several weeks in plastic tents. They want the UN to process their requests to be evacuated from the country.
A young Eritrean man has been found dead inside a trailer at a parking lot in the French port city of Calais. He is believed to have taken his own life.
A Jesuit center for refugees in Italy has noted that 67,040 migrants arrived in Italy in 2021 by sea, almost twice as many as the year before. Among them were nearly 10,000 unaccompanied minors.
More than 28,500 people arrived in Britain by crossing the English Channel from France in small boats in 2021. These irregular journeys to the UK across one of the world's busiest shipping lanes have been sharply on the rise in recent years.
Going forward, Germany will allow Afghan asylum seekers to pursue language and integration classes even before a decision is granted on their applications. The change in law came as government assessments showed that refugees from Afghanistan are likely to be allowed to remain in Germany for the time being.
Libya has been forcibly expelling groups of migrants, transporting them to the border and leaving them stranded there, the UN human rights office says. It has called on Libya to stop the practice immediately.
Some 63 refugees from the Horn of Africa arrived in Italy on Friday from Ethiopian refugee camps as part of a humanitarian corridor project.
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.
Despite tougher measures on both sides of the English Channel, asylum-seekers are still trying to make the dangerous crossing from France to the United Kingdom, in an attempt to find a better future.