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IMMIGRATION

Two migrant children die at sea between Morocco and Spain: NGO

Two seven-year-old children have died in the Mediterranean as hundreds of migrants sought to reach Spain from Morocco, a Spanish NGO said Saturday.

Published: 28 October 2018 09:13 CET
Two migrant children die at sea between Morocco and Spain: NGO
One of the Spanish sea rescue service's vessels with survivors picked up. Photo: Salvamento Maritimo
Meanwhile 16 Moroccan migrants were reported missing after another boat capsized off the coast of north Morocco.
   
According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) 42,500 migrants have arrived by sea in Spain since the start of the year and another 433 have been killed during the journey, often made aboard overcrowded and unseaworthy vessels. The death toll is already three times higher than the figure for the whole of 2017. 
 
The Spanish sea rescue service said on Twitter that 53 people had been rescued in the waters between Spain and northern Africa as migrant boat took on water. However “two lifeless bodies” were also recovered. The Caminando Fronteras NGO, which helps migrants, said that the dead bodies were those of two seven-year-old children.
 
   
Increasing numbers of Moroccans and sub-Saharan migrants are seeking to enter Spain, either by sea or by smuggling themselves into the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, which are in Morocco and are the only European territories in Africa.

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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