Two NGO vessels have saved some 250 migrants from distress in the Mediterranean Sea over two days. The number of arrivals to Italy via the central Mediterranean, at present one of the most dangerous migration paths in the world, continues to rise.
Yet another boat carrying African migrants has capsized off Libya's coast. This time, at least 57 people are presumed dead, the UN migration agency said. More than 1,100 people have perished in the Mediterranean so far this year.
The new Italian Coast Guard General Commander, Admiral Nicola Carlone, has emphasized that rescue at sea in the Mediterranean is, and remains, a "stable pillar" of the institution.
The Red Cross has said its teams would join the crew of the Ocean Viking rescue ship from next month; it also launched an emergency appeal for funds. Meanwhile, German charity Sea-Eye has announced it will sell its search and rescue vessel Alan Kurdi to the new Italian organization ResQ.
Morocco's navy says it has rescued 344 migrants, including women and children, after their boats ran into difficulty in the Mediterranean and Atlantic. Migrant arrivals to Spain are on track to match last year's numbers.
In the first six months of 2021, the number of migrants who died at sea in an attempt to reach Europe more than doubled compared to the same period in 2020, according to UN migration agency IOM. Most migrants died on the central Mediterranean route or en route to Spain's Canaries.
Migrant rights activists staged a protest in Rome because of a vote to renew Italy's cooperation with Libyan authorities. They demanded Italy stop funding and training Libya's coast guard, given that migrants returned to Libya face severe human rights abuses.
The Ocean Viking arrived in Sicily on Friday morning to disembark over 500 migrants it has on board. The crew and migrants had been waiting for a week to be assigned a safe port. Food and water were about to run out when they were assigned a port on Thursday evening.
Authorities at a British military base on Cyprus have hired additional officers and procured detection equipment to better thwart irregular immigration. The move comes as more migrants have continued to arrive from the Turkish-administered northern part of the island.
The Jesuit Refugee Service has called on Italy and the EU to activate a search-and-rescue operation in the Mediterranean. The call follows the death of several migrants, including a pregnant women, in a shipwreck off Lampedusa.
A prominent figure in the Algerian pro-democracy movement Hirak was found among a group of migrants on a boat heading to Spain. Chems Eddine Laalami and others on the boat were, however, intercepted by the Algerian coast guard, a rights group said Tuesday.
Some 90 migrants on a boat in distress were reportedly intercepted and returned to Libya over the weekend. The NGO Sea-Watch said Maltese authorities shared the boat's location with the Libyan coast guard to prevent it from reaching Maltese waters.