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 400 police officers were involved in raids in four different German states and Austria against an international people smuggling ring on Tuesday morning. The ring is thought to have trafficked more than 100 people, mostly from Syria, illegally into Germany. Five suspects were arrested, a total of 19 are being investigated.
25 migrants sustained "minor injuries" after a large fight broke out in an overcrowded migrant camp near the Cypriot capital Nicosia on Tuesday. The fights were reportedly between migrants from Syria and several different African countries.
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.
The ban on deportations of Syrian nationals deemed to pose a risk to security in Germany will expire at the end of the year. The interior ministers of Germany's state governments had failed to agree on the terms of an extension. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean that the expulsions will become possible on the practical level.
In the early hours of Tuesday, German media reported that 56 migrants were left by the side of the motorway in snowy south-eastern Germany, not far from the Czech border.
The parliamentary faction of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s CDU/CSU party wants to use the results of an inquest into the security situation in northern Syria to examine whether the region could be deemed a safe zone for deportation. But many have criticized the plans.
The Greek police have arrested a Syrian man suspected of having been involved in an IS Jihadist group. The 27-year-old was staying at the camp with his wife and children. According to Greek police, he said he entered Greece in March 2018.
According to a new report by Human Rights Watch, the Cypriot authorities have engaged in a series of pushbacks of migrants coming from Lebanon. The report focuses on several boats which arrived in August and September 2020 carrying more than 200 migrants, and is based on interviews with 15 Lebanese and Syrian nationals.
The boat capsized due to heavy winds, leaving at least one woman and two children dead. Search efforts carried on into the night, the Greek coast guard said.
The Cypriot authorities have said they are "alarmed" after a total of five migrant boats arrived on or near their shores from Syria and Lebanon in the space of 48 hours. The boats were carrying a total of 183 migrants.
The Legal Centre Lesvos, a legal charity registered in Greece and operating on the island of Lesbos, has just released a report in which it has documented allegations of illegal push-backs of migrants by the Greek authorities in the Aegean Sea.