Matteo Salvini, the leader of the Italian far-right party League, is under investigation in the city of Agrigento, Sicily. He is being probed for abduction and dereliction of duty because he didn't allow a rescue ship to dock .
The introduction of the "Salvini decree" has led to a strong incease in the number of undocumented migrants in Italy, according to a new study. That's mostly because it's become harder for asylum seekers to get a stay permit.
In its first high-level meeting on the issue of migration, the new Italian government focused on a new policy line; that aims to increase the relocation of migrants across the EU and calls for new agreements for the repatriation and redistribution across the bloc of those landing on Italy's shores.
Italy's new Interior Minister Lamorgese is seen as a moderate who may re-open ports to rescue vessels, but PM Conte wants the EU to show more solidarity with Italy in return. Bernd Riegert reports from Brussels.
An association of Italian jurists has launched an appeal to scrap a controversial security and immigration decree in Italy that allows authorities to seize NGO vessels who bring rescued migrants to Italy without permission, among other things. The group Democratic Jurists in Italy said the legislation "violates the constitutional guarantees of foreign citizens."
The outgoing interior minister closed Italy's refugee camps and its ports. But even with Matteo Salvini out of government, asylum-seekers are still trapped in a cycle of homelessness, harassment and frustration.
The private migrant rescue boat Open Arms is headed for the Italian island of Lampedusa with 147 rescued migrants on board. The green light came after a judge in Rome suspended Italy's far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini's decree banning NGO vessels from Italy's territorial waters.
SfruttaZero produces ecological tomato sauce with the help of migrant farmworkers. The two associations that run the project in Puglia, Italy, have criticized the new security decree and said that "the ethical and moral duty to resist" drives their work.
Under a new amendment to the second security and immigration decree in Italy, NGO skippers will be arrested if they fail to obey the orders of police or navy ships. In addition, NGO-run migrant rescue ships will be fined up to one million euros for defying a ban on entering Italian waters.
The UNHCR has asked the Italian Parliament to reconsider the government's second security decree which can ''have an impact on search and rescue operations at sea."
The Terra Aperta ('Open Land') network has been set up in the Italian city of Pistoia to help migrant reception and as a response to a recent 'security decree' passed by the Italian government.
After spending 27 years as the first doctor to examine migrants reaching Europe’s shores, Pietro Bartolo is now about to take over as a member of the European Parliament in Brussels. InfoMigrants caught up with Bartolo on Lampedusa and asked him about the Italian government's policies vis-a-vis NGO migrant rescue ships and his hopes as an MEP.