After the migrant rescue ship Sea-Watch 4 landed in Palermo, a spokesperson for the NGO that runs the ship called on the Italian government to not take "vexatious initiatives" regarding the vessel, "as it did with the Sea-Watch 3."
A total of 1,400 migrants and refugees are currently on Lampedusa. Hundreds arrived in small boats last week. Migrant reception facilities on the Italian island have been overcrowded for several weeks.
Italy has promised Tunisia more than 10 million euros to reduce the number of migrants headed to Italian shores. Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio and Interior Minister Luciana Lamorgese made an official visit to Tunis on Monday.
Migrant arrivals on Italian shores increased significantly between mid-2019 and mid-2020. There were fewer rescues at sea during that period, but autonomous arrivals of small boats and rubber dinghies increased massively, according to new figures from the Italian interior ministry.
Since the start of the year, more than 4,000 asylum-seekers have left squalid camps in northern France and made the perilous crossing to England's south coast. They face an uncertain future in the United Kingdom.
The UK Home Secretary has announced that she would be appointing a “Clandestine Channel Threat Commander” to lead the UK’s response to tackling illegal attempts to reach the UK by sea.
On Thursday, August 6, a new record was reached for the numbers of migrants attempting to cross the Channel between Britain and Europe in one day. According to reports, 235 migrants were detained on Thursday after being picked up by patrols.
Italy has closed its ports to NGO-run migrant rescue vessels due to safety concerns amid the coronavirus pandemic. NGOs and activists have criticized this decision. Meanwhile, improved weather conditions have led to more departures of migrants, trying to cross the Mediterranean to Europe.
34 migrants disembarked at the port of Lampedusa on Monday afternoon. Among them were 11 women, two of them pregnant. Before that, the island hadn't seen any migrant arrivals in three weeks. The migrants were transferred to the island's hotspot and will be placed under quarantine.
The number of migrants landing on Italy's coasts is dropping amid the coronavirus crisis, new government statistics show. In March, 241 migrants landed in Italy.
More than 150 organizations have pledged support to the "United4Rescue" initiative, launched by Germany's Protestant Church, which hopes to finance sea rescue efforts and send its own vessel into the Mediterranean Sea. The group is hoping to acquire a rescue ship in the near future.
13 people have been arrested in a joint Italian-Greek police operation to break up an alleged smuggling gang. The gang specialized in sailing small groups of migrants between Greece and the south-east Italian coast.