Hundreds of migrants rounded up in Algeria have arrived in Niger, despite the Algerian government’s strong denials that it is forcibly removing the primarily West African migrants and dumping them in the desert. Migrants from Guinea, Cameroon and other nations tell the International Organization for Migration (IOM) that they are…
Officials with the United Nations migration agency say the death toll has reached at least 112 after a boat on the Mediterranean Sea sank off the coast of Tunisia at the weekend. The boat was carrying an estimated 180 migrants, many of them from Tunisia, when it went down between…
The world’s financial and diplomatic leaders have reacted with sadness to news of the death of Peter Sutherland, the 71-year-old Irish statesman and former European Union commissioner. Among the many tributes to his influence as a United Nations diplomat, or his leadership as a World Trade Organization negotiator, were those…
After 340 film screenings focused on migration, held across the globe in 100 countries, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) announced on Monday the winners of its Global Migration Film Festival – including a Congolese artist living in Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya. The top award in the professional category…
The international news coverage on Libyan slave markets over the past week has resulted in a lot of issued statements, coming from outraged and passionate Parisian street protesters to British sports heroes to presidents and diplomats. “I am here because I saw my brothers sold in Libya as tomatoes on a counter,…
Laureen is the editor of Africa Times
Authorities say two men have been arrested in Italy following the deaths of 26 Nigerian women during a migrant crossing on the Mediterranean Sea. Italy’s ANSA news agency said police in Salerno identified Mohamed Ali Al Bouzid of Egypt and Al Mabrouc Wisam Harar, a Libyan, and have charged them…
There was some positive news Tuesday from the International Organization for Migration, as officials announced they had not seen a single migrant death on the Mediterranean Sea in the past three weeks. That’s a far cry from the 689 deaths recorded in August 2015, and the news comes as the…
Migrants traveling with smugglers off the coast of Yemen were forced into the sea on Thursday, with another five people reported dead and some 50 missing – just a day after a similar episode claimed 50 lives. The International Organization for Migration said up to 180 migrants were forced off…
Some 50 Somali and Ethiopian migrants traveling by boat to Yemen were forced into the sea by a human smuggler and drowned off the coast of Shabwa on Wednesday. There were dozens of survivors, some of whom left as others quickly buried 29 of the dead in shallow graves along…
The European Union’s dicey migration deal with Turkey is causing untold misery among migrants and refugees trapped on Greek islands, according to a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report released Wednesday. The HRW organization conducted research in May and June on the island of Lesbos that “documented the deteriorating mental health…
Social media images of trapped migrants in Libya are being used to extort ransom from their family and friends, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said Thursday. The United Nations Migration Agency described a video recorded by a Somali journalist and posted to Facebook on June 9 that showed some…
Libyan authorities picked up nearly 500 migrants, more than half of them from Morocco, in what they say were their territorial waters off the coast of Sabratha on Wednesday – but not without a challenge from the German NGO Sea Watch, whose own vessel tried to intervene so the migrants…
United Nations migration officials said Tuesday that migrants on the North African route hoping to cross the Mediterranean Sea are trafficked in what are essentially slave markets in lawless Libya. “Migrants who go to Libya while trying to get to Europe, have no idea of the torture archipelago that awaits…
The International Organization for Migration said Friday that 27,850 migrants and refugees entered Europe via the Mediterranean Sea through March of this year, over 80 percent arriving in Italy. The numbers show a dramatic drop from the same period last year, when there were more than 165,000 such crossings, but…
The numbers are daunting. There are more than 1,000 migrants from The Gambia stranded in Libya, according to the nation’s interior minister. “Many of them want to come home,” says Mai Ahmad Fatty. “They are victims of crime and they have no money, no food, and no proper shelter and…