More and more people are taking to small dinghies to cross the English Channel to the UK, in spite of the efforts on both sides to stop them. Many are desperate to escape unemployment and homelessness they experienced elsewhere in Europe.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen says the Dublin Regulation will be replaced with a new migration plan, to be revealed next week. Under the current rules, the EU country an asylum seeker first enters is responsible for their claim, meaning states such as Italy and Greece take a much larger share.
At the French-Italian border, dozens of migrants from all walks of life are prevented every day from crossing into France. A fallback for those who are weary of this cat-and-mouse game, the city of Ventimiglia has become a merciless territory for migrants in recent months.
France has made the fight against domestic violence a priority but activists say the state has overlooked undocumented migrant women who are victims of domestic violence. Although laws have been enacted in recent years, they have failed to protect women deprived of gender and residency rights, they argue.
Fires that devastated Europe's largest refugee camp Moria once again put a spotlight on the EU's treatment of asylum-seekers. EU Commissioner Ylva Johansson told DW about her plans to improve solidarity among EU states.
German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer announced ten EU countries would take in a share of 400 unaccompanied minors. The EU is also set to propose a new agreement on migration and asylum in the bloc.
Abdulfatah Hamdallah was found dead on a beach in northern France on August 19. The 28-year-old Sudanese migrant had tried to cross the Channel to the UK after his asylum application in France was rejected, according to media reports.
Berlin and Paris said they plan to move 400 minors from the Greek migrant camp destroyed in a blaze. Angela Merkel said she hoped other EU nations would assume a "shared responsibility" and accept some of the minors.
British and French authorities are reporting having picked up hundreds of migrants in the English Channel on Monday, September 7. Kent border force vessels said they had intercepted more than 200 and French authorities reported rescuing more than 80 people on their side of the water.
The number of migrants attempting to cross the English Channel on small boats has increased dramatically following months of good weather and a fall in freight traffic due to the COVID-19 pandemic. InfoMigrants visited the 80 kilometer-long stretch of coastline in the Calais region as the numbers of boat crossings hit a new daily high, with 416 migrants reaching the UK on September 3.
50 Iraqi migrants who had been living in Germany, France, the Netherlands and Belgium voluntarily returned to Iraq by plane on Wednesday. It was the first such flight since voluntary return flights were put on hold in March because of COVID-19.
A total of 118 migrants have left Greece Thursday on a plane bound for Germany. The transfer was part of a European effort to get hundreds of vulnerable children and their close family members out of camps on the Greek islands amid the coronavirus pandemic.