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IMMIGRATION

Another 900 migrants rescued in Med: Italian coastguard

Another 900 migrants have been rescued from stricken boats off Libya, Italy's coastguard said Wednesday, three days before the end of what is already a record year for arrivals at the country's southern ports.

Published: 29 December 2016 07:49 CET
Another 900 migrants rescued in Med: Italian coastguard
Some 180,300 migrants had been registered this year at Italian ports prior to the latest rescues. Photo: Andreas Solaro/AFP

Most of the latest batch of migrants were picked up overnight from two wooden boats travelling together and around 40 people were rescued from another boat at dawn.

Around 400 were rescued by the Aquarius, a rescue boat operated by charity SOS Mediterranee, which said the migrants it had taken on board included Eritreans, Bangladeshis, Pakistanis, Somalians and Syrians.

According to the Italian Interior Ministry, some 180,300 migrants had been registered this year at Italian ports prior to the latest rescues. This compares with a previous annual record of 170,100, recorded in 2014.

UN bodies say more than 5,000 people have died trying to cross the Mediterranean, most of them on the Libya-Italy route. The Libyan Red Cross said on Wednesday that 11 drowned bodies had been found on beaches near Tripoli in the West of the country.

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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