In an apparent case of human smuggling, Slovenian police have discovered 13 migrants hidden in a cargo truck. Migrants are regularly discovered crammed into trucks and cars heading through the Balkans en route to western Europe.
The policy of migrant returns between EU countries is complex and creates "blurred lines," an expert in EU law and migration has told InfoMigrants. In the light of two recent cases of returns from Austria to Hungary, we decided to take a closer look at the subject.
The Cypriot government has lashed out at Turkey, saying it was indirectly involved in helping create a new migration route that "disproportionally burdened" Cyprus. The island nation and EU member state has had the bloc’s highest percentage of asylum seekers for several years.
Fewer people attempted to enter the EU without authorization in 2020, largely due to coronavirus restrictions, the bloc's border agency said. Syrians were again the largest group of people trying to enter the bloc.
Police on the border between northern Italy and Slovenia will start using cameras that automatically detect movement to monitor irregular crossings. Most of those crossing the border are from Pakistan and Afghanistan, police say.
The information flow about the roughly 22,000 migrants who have arrived on Spain's Canary Islands this year is slow and often intransparent – from authorities, NGOs and locals alike. The lack of communication and absence of facts have long helped fuel rumors and xenophobia.
The Greek government says recent arrivals of Somali migrants may have been coordinated by Turkish authorities. The Greek migration minister said the Somalis were being helped to obtain visas to enter Turkey legally and then continue on to Greece.
Mediterranean states France and Morocco have inked a deal on child migrant returns. The text of the agreement on the care of unaccompanied underage migrant children notably calls for "concrete tools" to facilitate the return of minors from France to Morocco.
In recent months, thousands of migrants have been taken in by hotels on Spain's Canary Islands. This has caused tension in the islands' vital tourist industry, which was hit hard by the coronavirus crisis. It remains unclear if the migrants' presence will hurt the popularity of the holiday destination at all -- but xenophobia is on the rise.
The makeshift tent camp on a pier in Arguineguín, which was used to process and accommodate migrants who tried to reach the Canary Islands, was cleared by authorities on Sunday after being used for three months. In November alone, more than 8,000 people arrived on the Spanish Atlantic archipelago. Meanwhile, 68 migrants arrived on Gran Canaria today on two small boats.
More than 1,500 migrants have illegally entered Germany from Scandinavian nations since the beginning of the year. Politicians are calling for an overhaul of the Dublin regulation to make such secondary migration less attractive.
The governor of the northeast Italian region that borders Slovenia has said that "patrols of the Italian-Slovenian border, which began some years ago, are now very scarce."