The Libyan coast guard says it rescued 290 migrants from two rubber dinghies off the eastern coast of Tripoli on Friday. The migrants were returned to Libya and handed over to the country's "Anti-Illegal Migration Agency" while clashes in the capital Tripoli continue.
The Italian interior ministry is expected to push forward with a decree that would fine charities that attempt to bring migrants to the country's ports. The UN has called the decree a "political attempt to criminalize search and rescue operations."
A central theme at this year's Art Biennale in Venice, Italy, is migration - despite the increased clamp-down on migration by the Italian government. Several countries chose to display works related to migration at the biannual event, chief among them Switzerland.
Prosecutors in Italy have requested the indictment of four foreign nationals accused of being human traffickers. They were allegedly responsible for the migrant boat that was later rescued by the Italian Coast Guard ship Diciotti. The boat is at the center of a legal case involving Interior Minister Matteo Salvini.
The UN Refugee Agency’s High Commissioner Filippo Grandi (UNHCR) warned, during a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin on Monday, that escalating violence in Libya could cause more migration to Europe.
The Maltese government announced on Saturday April 13 that more than 60 migrants on board the German run rescue ship, the Alan Kurdi would be shared between four countries, Germany, France, Portugal and Luxembourg.
The EU border agency Frontex has denied having documented any "collusion" between NGOs and human traffickers. French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner had claimed earlier in the week that Frontex knew of NGOs aiding smugglers.
The European border agency Frontex says the number of migrants arriving in Europe by boat via the Central Mediterranean has nearly halved. In the past three months, the agency says the number of arrivals has fallen by 92 percent.
Open Arms founder Oscar Camps told ANSA in an interview that saving lives at sea is not about legality but rather "an obligation." He defended the actions of the ship Alan Kurdi run by the German NGO Sea Eye which Italy has so far blocked from disembarking at the island of Lampedusa.
Mo Ibrahim, a Sudan-born billionaire, who made his money in telecommunications, (and has set up a foundation to encourage better governance in Africa with some of the profits), said at a meeting of his foundation in Ivory Coast in early April that migration should be viewed as a positive phenomenon and not a threat.
A humanitarian ship carrying 64 rescued migrants aboard remains at sea on Friday, just outside Italian territorial waters, as the governments of Italy and Malta refuse to grant safe harbor. Meanwhile, the German run Sea-Watch organization has asked its countries diplomats to try and find a safe port for them within the EU via diplomatic channels.
Mohamed's story is just one of five stories of refugees from Nazism to the present day contained in a new book "Stormy Seas" by Canadian Mary Beth Letherdale, a children's book author.