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IMMIGRATION

1000 migrants rescued on Friday: Italy coastguard

Around one thousand people were rescued from unseaworthy vessels in the Mediterranean on Friday, while one dead body was recovered, the Italian coastguard said in a statement.

Published: 28 January 2017 09:13 CET
1000 migrants rescued on Friday: Italy coastguard
One of the nearly 200,000 migrants rescued crossing the med in 2016. Photo: Andreas Solaro/AFP
The migrants, who were found aboard six inflatable and three wooden boats, were rescued in operations throughout the day, notably by two coastguard ships. The dead body was found on one of the inflatable boats.
   
According to the United Nations, more than 5,000 people died last year in attempts to cross the Mediterranean and reach Europe, most of them after embarking from the Libyan coast after paying people smugglers.
   
This was the highest annual toll on record. Unlike previous years, winter has not brought an end to the migrant arrivals, just a reduction in the numbers.

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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