EU border agency Frontex said on January 8 that the number of irregular entries by migrants into the EU fell to its lowest since 2013 last year. Entries were down 41% compared to 2018 along the central Mediterranean route.
Former Lampedusa doctor and current member of the European Parliament, Pietro Bartolo, says for years he has been seeing women migrants with what he calls the 'dinghy disease' - chemical burns only females tend to sustain while trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea towards Italy.
The German-based private rescue organization Sea-Watch announced that as of December 5 it was registered under the German flag. The organization said it had “insufficient confidence” in the Netherlands as a flag state.
A Rome court has ruled that 14 Eritreans who were pushed back to Libya ten years ago have the right to enter Italy and request international protection. The former prime minister and defense minister have been ordered to pay 210,000 euros in damages.
Italian Interior Minister Luciana Lamorgese has called for a "code of conduct" for private vessels carrying out rescue operations in the Mediterranean. She wants the EU to introduce "rules for the security of migrants and crew members."
The French Ministry of Defense announced in February 2019 that it would deliver six semi-rigid speed boats with gun ports to the Libyan coast guard by Spring 2020. On December 2, the government announced they would be halting this delivery after several NGOs filed a lawsuit against the action.
The bodies of five migrants who died when a boat capsized in rough waters off the southern Lampedusa coast a week ago have been found, Italy's coast guard said on Sunday. This brings the overall death toll to 18.
Migrant women and teens crossing the central Mediterranean face a high risk of sexual violence, warned UNICEF on November 25, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. The risk is even higher in the case of unaccompanied minors, UNICEF said.
The organizations Doctors Without Borders (MSF) and SOS Mediterranee are appealing once again to European governments to stop obstructing migrant search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean.
The mayor of the southern Italian island of Lampedusa says that boats used by migrants can become a danger to the community and the environment, after they have been abandoned on the island.
Malta has signed a ‘secret deal’ with Libyan authorities to intercept migrants before they reach Maltese waters and take them back to Libya, the ‘The Times of Malta’ has reported. The Maltese government denies the charge.
The number of autonomous or so-called "phantom" migrant landings has gone up this year, according to Italian Interior Minister Luciana Lamorgese. Meanwhile, the number of sea arrivals and new asylum applicants decreased.