Algeria said Wednesday it was suspending a decades-old co-operation treaty with Spain, after Madrid backed the position of the North African country's arch-rival Morocco on the disputed Western Sahara.
Migrants have been protesting in front of the UNHCR office building in Tunis for weeks. They are trying to draw the attention of the media and humanitarian organizations to their living conditions, and to demand that the UNHCR expedite their requests for international protection.
About 850 migrants have managed to cross the high border fence separating Melilla from Morocco over the past two days. Thousands of people from sub-Sahara Africa attempted to scale the fence on Wednesday and Thursday.
Dozens of migrants, mostly from sub-Saharan African countries and Sudan, have staged protests in the southern Tunisian city of Zarzis. They said they had been marginalized and demanded to be evacuated.
The Moroccan Navy picked up 63 migrants from their rubber dinghy off the coast of Morocco on February 1. Meanwhile, Spanish rescuers reported more rescues nearer the Canary Islands.
The NGO Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights (FTDES) has expressed concern for a potential agreement between Tunisia and France to accelerate the expulsion process of Tunisian migrants in an irregular situation.
The city of Zarzis in southern Tunisia takes care of the vast majority of the bodies of migrants that wash up on various beaches in the south of the country. This unanticipated service has created a burden for the small municipality that says it lacks the means.
Various UN agencies have denounced violence against migrants in Libya after security forces shot dead at least half a dozen asylum seekers in recent days.
Three migrants were killed and one injured after a train in southern France struck them. The migrants were reportedly lying or sleeping on or near the tracks at the time of the incident.
A group of 125 migrants was reportedly pushed back from the Spanish enclave of Peñón di Vélez de la Gomera to Morocco, according to various Spanish NGOs.
The bodies of eight migrants, thought to be of North African origin, have been found on beaches in southern Spain since Sunday. One child and three women were among the corpses. The authorities said they could have come from one or several small boats.
Hundreds of Moroccan nationals are being held in inhumane conditions in Libyan detention centers, a human rights group reports. The families are urging the Moroccan government to intervene.