More than 5,300 migrants and refugees have arrived on Italy's coasts irregularly so far in 2021. That's more than twice the number of people who arrived during the same period in 2020. Meanwhile, the number of migrants intercepted and returned to Libya reportedly also increased.
A group of scouts from the city of Taranto in southern Italy has met with asylum seekers to mark World Thinking Day. The scouts donated "tiles of peace", which will be installed in three symbolic locations of the city.
A migrant rescue ship has been allowed to disembark 363 people rescued from the Mediterranean in Sicily. Italy also "provisionally" lifted a blockade of the vessel Sea-Watch 4.
The mayor of the Lampedusa has said he is concerned over the "increasingly active" Libyan route to Italy. Migrant arrivals on the island continued on Saturday, Sunday and Monday with more than 400 people landing on the Italian island.
Italy's highest court has ruled that a migrant mother of twins must be granted humanitarian protection status. The court said the children increased her vulnerability.
Between Friday and Sunday, some 550 migrants were rescued in the Central Mediterranean. While the private rescue organization Sea-Watch said it saved some 450 people, a Libyan patrol boat picked up nearly 100 from a shipwreck, in which 20 passengers are reported missing.
What happens to migrants who are rescued in the Mediterranean Sea and then brought to shore in Italy? InfoMigrants explains the procedure of fingerprinting, compulsory health quarantine, and the steps that follow.
An immigrant advisory commission for the city of Naples in southern Italy took office on Thursday. The body was established in 2018 to improve the lives of immigrants through drawing up proposals.
Pietro Bartolo, a member of the European Parliament and for years the "doctor of migrants" who landed on the Italian island of Lampedusa, said Europe has the greatest responsibility for what is still happening in the Mediterranean and in Libya, and that it "doesn't do what it should do".
In the central Mediterranean, the race against time to reach the EU is turning to a race against Libya's coast guard. With mounting reports on stand-offs between Libyan maritime authorities and NGOs in international waters, fewer migrants are succeeding in making their way to Europe. They are instead returned to Libya.
The associations Intersos and UNHCR on Tuesday launched a competition for PartecipAzione 2021, the fourth edition of an empowerment and capacity-building program for refugee associations in Italy.
Italian police on Tuesday arrested ten foreign nationals, most of whom from Iraqi Kurdistan, who allegedly set up a criminal organization involved in aiding and abetting clandestine migration including through procurement and counterfeiting documents.