Greece has announced a further extension of its border fence with Turkey, aimed at stopping migrants. The government also repeated a call for Europe to show "solidarity and a fair sharing of duties."
A group of 22 migrants who fled a plane in 2021 after it made an unscheduled landing on the island of Mallorca have been provisionally released after spending 14 months in pre-trial detention.
The Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Antonio Tajani, met with his Turkish counterpart, Mevlut Cavusoglu, in Ankara to take stock of the migration issue, and stated that “contrasting illegal migration is a strategic priority” for both countries.
The number of asylum applications in Germany has risen significantly in the past year. In addition to around one millions Ukrainians seeking protection, almost a quarter of a million people from elsewhere submitted asylum applications in Germany in 2022.
The PEN writers' association NGO in Germany has called on the government to accept Iranian opposition figures as refugees. It said the government should create a special program similar to the way Ukrainians and Afghans have been treated.
The Greek border authorities have arrested a total of around 1,300 suspected human smugglers last year along the Evros river bordering Turkey, a Greek minister said. He also claimed that more than a quarter million irregular crossing attempts by migrants were prevented in 2022.
A migrant has died in an accident involving a fully loaded minibus in northeastern Greece. Another three migrants were seriously injured, Greek state radio reported. Smugglers in the region are known to repeatedly try to bring migrants from the Greek-Turkish border into western Greece, frequently leading to fatal accidents.
The Turkish coast guard says it has rescued 81 migrants who had tried to reach Greece via the Aegean Sea in rubber dinghies. They accused Greek officials of pushing the migrants back into Turkish waters illegally.
The number of migrants entering the EU irregularly has continued to rise, according to the border agency Frontex. The largest number -- around 140,000 -- traveled through the Western Balkans.
Bulgaria has detained 70 people suspected of having entered the country as migrants using irregular means. Some had to be rushed to hospital having suffered exhaustion, according to regional police forces.
After a commercial flight from Morocco to Turkey made an emergency landing in Barcelona yesterday, 28 of the passengers fled across the tarmac in an apparent attempt to get into the country using irregular means.
The EU has opened a 400-bed hospital on the Turkish border with Syria. The initiative is one of the largest EU funding projects in Turkey, which has received more than €10 billion in funds since 2014 for its hosting of several million refugees.