At least 25 people are dead or missing after some passengers in a group of six migrant boats were stranded on the Mediterranean Sea before rescuers reached them off the Spanish coast on Thursday. A spokeswoman for the UN Refugee Agency, UNCHR, said the Spanish Coast Guard found the boats…
The Nigerian people were cheated out of an estimated USD$6 billion when a 2011 oil rights deal enriched its own officials but really benefited two international oil majors – Royal Dutch Shell and the Italian Eni – instead of Nigeria, according to a report released Monday by London-based NGO Global…
A strong earthquake struck the Ionian islands of western Greece early Friday, with people in at least eight countries saying they felt the shaking across southern Europe and North Africa. The United States Geological Survey said the 6.8-magnitude earthquake hit just before 2 a.m. local time, about 33 kilometers from…
Khalifa Haftar, head of the Libyan National Army, has in recent days threatened to move on Tripoli, retaliate against Algeria over allegations its military is crossing into Libyan territory, and called Italy an enemy of the Libyan people. “Tripoli must be liberated and will not remain in spoiled hands,” Haftar…
Migrants aboard a Mediterranean Sea rescue ship denied entry to Italian ports set sail for Spain at 9 p.m. local time Tuesday night, according to the Sos Méditerranée NGO that operates the ship in collaboration with Doctors Without Borders (MSF). Their departure alongside two Italian military vessels ended a two-day…
Aid workers on the Mediterranean Sea, with more than 600 migrants from Libya aboard the rescue ship Aquarius, continued to search for a solution after Italy refused to accept the ship in one of its ports. The ship, operated by Sos Méditerranée with a medical crew from Doctors Without Borders…
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…
A bottleneck for refugees fleeing Libya into Niger – and waiting to continue on to Europe – is threatening the success of an agreement to free migrants and refugees from Libyan detention centers and slave markets. The deal between the European Union (EU), African Union (AU) and United Nations (UN)…
President Emmanuel Macron of France has announced €400 million (USD$474 million) in financial aid to Niger during his weekend press conference with President Mahamadou Issoufou in Niamey. Macron said the funding, planned through 2021, will support development in Niger and security in the Sahel. His remarks alongside Issoufou, who Macron praised…
Laureen is the editor of Africa Times
Executives of Royal Dutch Shell and Italian oil major Eni will stand trial in Milan on corruption charges tied to a widely investigated Nigerian oil rights deal dating back to 2011. An Italian judge on Wednesday set a March 5 date for the case against Eni’s current CEO Claudio Descalzi,…
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…
The European Union introduced on Wednesday a new immigration plan that would bring at least 50,000 new people, primarily from African and Middle East nations, into member countries. The proposed two-year plan will run through October 2019, and acknowledges the shift in migration patterns across the Mediterranean since the immigration…
Archaeologists say they’ve discovered the undersea ruins of a Roman city off the coast of Tunisia, where part of the ancient Neapolis was submerged after a fourth-century earthquake and tsunami on the Mediterranean Sea. That’s the working theory of a research team from Tunisia’s National Heritage Institute and the University…
President Emmanuel Macron of France on Tuesday will host Fayez Al-Sarraj, head of the Presidency Council for Libya’s internationally recognized Government of National Accord (GNA), and Khalifa Haftar, head of the Libyan National Army in the nation’s east, at La Celle Saint-Cloud near Paris to discuss solutions to the Libyan…
An art masterpiece stolen from Italy in 2014 and discovered in Morocco was returned Saturday to Italian authorities. The 17th-century painting by Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, known to the art world as Guercino, was stolen from the Church of Saint Vincent of Modena in northern Italy in August 2014. The work,…