Italy's interior minister made some concillatory noises towards France but said that welcoming migrants 'had its limits' and that what was needed was a "new European policy." On Thursday, Italian police issued 18 arrest warrants against an alleged smuggling ring between Tunisia and Sicily.
Algerian TV reports that 16 people were killed after two pickup trucks collided in the south of the country. Among the victims were 13 Guineans, a Malian and two Algerians. Three people were also seriously injured.
A 14-year-old Sudanese refugee boy, Mazen, was abducted in August near his house in Warshafana, Libya. He was first held in a militia prison and he is currently detained in a juvenile prison in the Tajoura area, east of Tripoli. His father told ANSA that he still doesn't know why his son is being held and that the boy is in poor health.
Five boats carrying 72 migrants independently reached Mallorca and neighboring islands on Wednesday. The arrival of migrant boats on Spain's Balearic Islands is rare, but numbers have increased in recent years.
A 35-year-old Eritrean man wanted by Italian authorities on human trafficking charges has been arrested in Ethiopia and extradited to Italy. Ghebremedin Temeschen Ghebru was wanted for over a year as the alleged leader of a "transnational association operating between Central Africa, Maghreb countries, Italy and Northern Europe" for migrant trafficking, Italian police said.
The death toll from a shipwreck off Chebba last week has risen to 11, mostly Tunisians. 12 others are still missing.
Tunisian authorities confirmed on Monday that they had “intercepted or rescued” 657 migrants at sea over the weekend. The migrants in question had been trying to reach Europe by crossing the Mediterranean.
Mohamed Ali Chelbi, a young goalkeeper from the Tunisian team CS Sfaxien, made headlines when he chose to board a migrant boat to Italy at the weekend.
Italy's prime minister Mario Draghi visited Algeria on Monday. The summit was one in a long line of deepening relations between the two countries, which began most recently last November. Energy, migration and stability in the Mediterranean were on the agenda.
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.