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IMMIGRATION

Maritime rescue crew assists migrant boat

Spanish authorities on Sunday intercepted a wooden fishing boat packed with 32 illegal immigrants, including a woman and her baby, which was trying to make landfall off the coast of Cadiz, a maritime rescue services spokesman said.

Published: 17 March 2013 17:13 CET
Maritime rescue crew assists migrant boat
Africans hoping to make their home in Europe are tended by Red Cross staff. Photo: Desiree Martin/AFP

A maritime rescue service ship made contact with the boat off the coast of the province of Cadiz and took the would-be immigrants to the port of Tarifa, he said.

The 32 passengers of the fishing boat, including the woman and her child, appeared to be in good health, the spokesman added.

The maritime rescue service was alerted to the presence of the boat after one of the migrants called Spanish emergency services to ask for help because the vessel's motor had stopped working.

Thousands of people from Africa regularly attempt to cross from Morocco into Spain on makeshift boats each year.

Authorities fear many of those who attempt the crossing by sea die of thirst, hunger or exposure.

CRIME

Germany mulls expulsions to Afghanistan after knife attack

Germany said Tuesday it was considering allowing deportations to Afghanistan, after an asylum seeker from the country injured five and killed a police officer in a knife attack.

Published: 4 June 2024 14:50 CEST
Germany mulls expulsions to Afghanistan after knife attack

Officials had been carrying out an “intensive review for several months… to allow the deportation of serious criminals and dangerous individuals to Afghanistan”, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser told journalists.

“It is clear to me that people who pose a potential threat to Germany’s security must be deported quickly,” Faeser said.

“That is why we are doing everything possible to find ways to deport criminals and dangerous people to both Syria and Afghanistan,” she said.

Deportations to Afghanistan from Germany have been completely stopped since the Taliban retook power in 2021.

But a debate over resuming expulsions has resurged after a 25-year-old Afghan was accused of attacking people with a knife at an anti-Islam rally in the western city of Mannheim on Friday.

A police officer, 29, died on Sunday after being repeatedly stabbed as he tried to intervene in the attack.

Five people taking part in a rally organised by Pax Europa, a campaign group against radical Islam, were also wounded.

Friday’s brutal attack has inflamed a public debate over immigration in the run up to European elections and prompted calls to expand efforts to expel criminals.

READ ALSO: Tensions high in Mannheim after knife attack claims life of policeman

The suspect, named in the media as Sulaiman Ataee, came to Germany as a refugee in March 2013, according to reports.

Ataee, who arrived in the country with his brother at the age of only 14, was initially refused asylum but was not deported because of his age, according to German daily Bild.

Ataee subsequently went to school in Germany, and married a German woman of Turkish origin in 2019, with whom he has two children, according to the Spiegel weekly.

Per the reports, Ataee was not seen by authorities as a risk and did not appear to neighbours at his home in Heppenheim as an extremist.

Anti-terrorism prosecutors on Monday took over the investigation into the incident, as they looked to establish a motive.

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