A group of residents in a small town in Calabria, southern Italy, have been protesting against the presence of a group of Pakistani migrants who tested positive for coronavirus. The migrants are being housed in apartments close to other residential buildings.
On Sunday, July 12, Italian newspapers reported that a total of 791 migrants disembarked on Lampedusa and Sicily over the previous 48 hours. The governor of the Sicilian region has called on the federal government to call a state of emergency with hotspots above capacity and a number of migrants testing positive for coronavirus.
The German NGO Sea-Watch has recently acquired a new aircraft in cooperation with the Swiss Humanitarian Pilots Initiative (HPI). The aircraft, which has been named Seabird, will be used for civil air reconnaissance missions off the coast of Libya, from where hundreds of migrants depart on makeshift boats to Europe every week . The new aircraft is an addition to the Moonbird, which has been active since 2017.
The private rescue ship Sea-Watch 3, run by the German organization Sea Watch, has been seized by Italian authorities after an inspection uncovered "administrative" and "safety" irregularities, which could "compromise the vessel, its crew and anyone who might be rescued by it."
Migration in the Mediterranean became a focus as Germany took up the rotating presidency of the EU Council in July and the EU’s foreign minister, Josep Borrell, visited Malta this week.
Forensic scientists in Tunisia have emphasized the importance of identifying and cataloging the bodies of those who drown in the Mediterranean, in case any of their relatives come looking for them in the future. Yet dozens of migrants who drowned off Tunisia last month will likely remain unidentified.
A group of human rights activists and lawyers took their case to prosecutors to a court in Rome on Thursday, asking them to determine whether the Italian authorities were complicit in an incident involving a migrant boat at Easter, in which 12 people drowned and the 51 survivors were taken back to Libya.
Dozens of migrants continue to wait on board the Ocean Viking ship, after Italy and Malta both refused to grant safe harbor to the private rescue vessel. SOS Mediterranee , which runs the Ocean Viking, said it had sent five requests to both countries over the past week, asking for the boat to dock.
Migrants attempting to cross the Mediterranean are regularly being picked up by the Libyan authorities and returned to Libya. Charities report their rescue ships are often out-run by Libyan coast guards who beat them to take the migrants back. Nearly 500 migrants have been returned to Libya in recent days, according to the UN migration agency IOM.
There are currently 118 rescued migrants on board the Ocean Viking ship in the Mediterranean, the majority of them hail from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Eritrea. Some of those on board spoke to AFP, telling them about their experiences of slavery in Libya.
Several people have died following another shipwreck along the Libyan coast over the weekend. The incident took place near the capital, Tripoli. The exact number of victims is so far unknown; however, according to initial reports, there were three bodies washed up on the beach near the town of Al-Zawiya, about 50 kilometers west of Tripoli.
Morocco's navy says it saved nearly 100 migrants on several boats in the Mediterranean, according to the country's official MAP news agency. The migrants were reportedly traveling in the direction of Spain on several boats on June 18.