Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

IMMIGRATION

More than 900 migrants rescued off Libya

More than 900 migrants have been rescued off the coast of Libya during the past 48 hours while trying to reach Italy, the Italian coastguard said on Friday.

Published: 10 June 2017 10:50 CEST
More than 900 migrants rescued off Libya
Photo: AFP

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said that it saved 716 of the migrants, and had found one body.

“Around 800 people were rescued today (Friday) during eight separate operations” in the Mediterranean, said a spokesman for the coastguard, which is coordinating the operations.

The migrants were on eight boats, including two inflatables, he said.

Some 130 others were rescued on Thursday.

MSF tweeted that it had “completed the 5th rescue (operation) and now have 716 people onboard. Unfortunately, for one person we arrived too late.”

The UN refugee agency has said around 61,250 migrants have reached Italy since the start of the year after crossing the Mediterranean, while 1,778 more are dead or missing.

Conflict-ravaged Libya has long been a stepping stone for migrants seeking a better life in Europe.

It has urged Europe, and particularly Italy, to supply it with the equipment it needs to monitor its southern borders, through which migrants, mostly from sub-Saharan Africa, enter 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.

SHOW COMMENTS