InfoMigrants has learnt that one of the victims in Tuesday's shipwreck off Libya had been in contact with us back in March. At least 43 people died in the accident. Souleymane came from Guinea and had been in Libya for the last three years. This was his fourth attempt to cross the Mediterranean.
Abdullah Sabra was just 14 when he was sent to sea by his father. After nearly a decade spent working on merchant vessels, he reached a point where he knew he needed to leave the ship. His passage to asylum in Europe however was different from most. Now in Germany, he is hoping to return to sea to help other refugees from the decks of the Sea-Watch.
More than 60 migrants were prevented from crossing the English Channel between France and the UK at the weekend. British police said they detained 36 people, and the French authorities arrested 27 people on Saturday. A further 134 were prevented from crossing over the last week.
Over the weekend, more than 150 migrants arrived in the UK after attempting to cross the Channel between mainland Europe and Britain. More than 50 were arrested by French authorities and brought back to France. In 2020, more than 9,500 made it across the water -- the numbers more than quadrupled on 2019 figures.
50 migrants, mostly from sub-Sahara Africa, were rescued by the Tunisian navy on Monday off the coast of Tunisia after five days at sea. One of their number, a new-born baby, was found dead as the authorities arrived.
On Saturday, news agencies reported that 55 Syrian migrants had been brought back to land after hours on a boat in rough seas. The Syrians had been attempting to reach Italy.
Ibrahim Kamara left The Gambia and arrived in Cyprus in 2018. Although he didn’t know where Cyprus was, or really intend to land there, he has made the best of his situation. Today he has found happiness and a way to live in peace on the Mediterranean island that has become his new home. InfoMigrants caught up with him by telephone.
One woman drowned and two women were rescued off the Greek island of Lesbos on Friday. They had fallen out of an overcrowded inflatable raft carrying dozens of Somali migrants.
The Tunisian Navy announced on Tuesday that it had intercepted 93 African migrants in the Mediterranean during an attempt to cross to Europe.
18-year-old Babacar is one of more than 8,000 African migrants who made his way to the Canary Islands archipelago in November 2020. When InfoMigrants spoke to him, Babacar had just been taken in by a Canary Islands resident who decided to help him.
On December 7, the UK Home Office confirmed that 111 migrants had crossed the Channel to the UK, including five children, one of whom was a baby wearing no shoes or socks. Temperatures on Monday were reported as “near-freezing” and on land hovering at about 1 degree Celsius.
The mayor of Lampedusa has denounced that the island's port has become a "floating cemetery" of boats used by migrants to reach Italy's coast, accusing national authorities of failing to solve a problem that is damaging the environment.