Germany’s interior minister Horst Seehofer wants to continue the border checks he introduced in November after a prominent Lebanese clan member managed to travel to Germany despite a re-entry ban. In recent weeks, police caught almost 180 foreigners with entry bans during border checks. To fight criminal clans, the interior ministry also plans to intensify the residence law.
A Russian man has been charged with fraud after he constructed a false border post near the Russian border with Finland. Border control authorities said he received 10,000 euros from four South Asian migrants after promising to smuggle them into the EU.
52 migrants in a van tried to forcefully cross the border separating the Spanish overseas enclave of Ceuta from Morocco. The autonomous Spanish cities of Ceuta and Melilla on Morocco's northern coast have the EU's only land borders with Africa.
Since 2015, the Slovenian government has been erecting a barbed wire fence along its southern border in an attempt to stem the flow of migrants from neighboring Croatia. Residents of nearby Slovenian villages are not happy about the barrier, which they say damages the landscape and does not prevent migrants from crossing.
As more and more refugees and migrants try to make it to Western Europe via the western Balkan route, and with winter approaching, the EU and NGOs have warned of a humanitarian crisis in the Vucjak migrant camp and similar facilities in Bosnia and Herzegovina near the border with Croatia. On Friday, hundreds of locals protested against the migrants' presence.
As large numbers of displaced people arrived in 2015, some Schengen countries reintroduced border checks. Six are extending controls. That's illegal, EU observers say, and it undermines the idea of freedom of movement.
Germany’s Interior Minister Horst Seehofer has responded to the illegal re-entry of a clan member by making border controls even stricter. Moreover, he declared Friday that the clan member’s deportation was being prepared.
While migrant camps on the Aegean islands have reached breaking point, and with Turkey threatening to 'open the gates', migrants continue to arrive in Greece in the hundreds every week. Most come by sea, but in recent months, growing numbers have crossed via the land route across the Evros River. Many claim they are subjected to violent and illegal treatment by authorities at the border.
The Bosnian government claims none of the local communities in the country agreed to the construction of new migrant centers in their territories.
Hungary's refugee and migrant policies have been in breach of international human rights conventions as well as EU regulation for years. Along the country's border with Serbia there's now a new, underreported trend affecting migrants: deliberate starvation.
Around 1500 migrants were rounded up in northwestern Bosnia and moved to a camp in the country on Wednesday. The town of Bihac cannot provide adequate shelter for these people in the winter weather, authorities said.
The majority of migrants and asylum seekers in Serbia are Afghan nationals. They hope to continue their journeys to western Europe, but many fail in the attempt.