The death toll from wildfires sweeping across parts of Algeria rose to 69 on Wednesday, according to a local official in the hard-hit district of Tizi Ouzou. Abdelkader Amrouche, the attorney general for the region, confirmed that the number included 20 soldiers who responded to the emergency when the fires…
Back in March, a 22-year-old rapper named Sohail Al Sagheer left Algeria for Spain aboard a migrant boat. He went missing and his body wasn’t found until April 5, when it was discovered off the coast of Aïn Témouchent. The Algerian musician is one of at least 1,146 people who…
An Italian judge released migrant rescue ship captain Carola Rakete on Tuesday from a house arrest order in place since the weekend, after the German captain defied Italy’s ban on accepting migrants at its ports and docked at Lampedusa. “We are relieved our captain is free!” said the Sea Watch…
A weeks-long standoff between the Italian government and migrant rescuers on the Mediterranean Sea came to an end early Saturday as the captain of a Sea Watch ship entered a port at Lampedusa and then faced immediate arrest. Carola Rakete was taken into custody as about 40 migrants who had…
This week’s drama aboard a Turkish oil tanker with 108 rescued migrants aboard illustrated yet again the desperation of those seeking to flee the lawlessness of Libya on dangerous routes across the Mediterranean – and now there’s some evidence that Libyan officials, tasked with the rescues, don’t respond when called…
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, speaking in Greece, conceded that a migration deal struck between Turkey and the European Union in 2016 isn’t working as planned but Europe will continue to support its implementation. That deal affecting Middle Eastern and North African migrants immediately ended crossings from Turkey into Greece, with…
Ahead of a storm forecast for the Mediterranean Sea, the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, joined in a humanitarian aid appeal Monday asking for safe ports for two vessels carrying 49 migrants. “Time is increasingly of the essence,” UNHCR said in a New Year’s Eve statement. “Rough seas are expected…
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…
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…
More than 1,700 people have died this year on the Mediterranean Sea migration route to Europe, and both UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, and IOM, the UN Migration Agency, appealed jointly to European governments on Wednesday to change their “dangerously toxic” discourse on migration. “The current tenor of the political debate…
The 141 migrants aboard the rescue ship Aquarius are headed for Malta, after days of yet another standoff on the Mediterranean Sea as three countries refused to allow the ship port access. Malta originally refused to accept the ship, as did Spain, which previously allowed its passengers to disembark during…
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…
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 from Morocco and Bangladesh combined to make up more than 7,000 of an estimated 30,000 arrivals to Italy from North Africa so far this year, according to an update released Friday by the International Organization for Migration in Rome. That’s compared with numbers through April 30 in 2016, when…