(AFP) Sudanese migrant Soulaimen has been sleeping on the beach in the Italian border town of Ventimiglia for 10 days now. With his only shelter a sleeping bag and pasta meals donated by a charity, the 20-year-old is getting by as best […]
(AFP) After Turkey turned Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia museum back to a mosque, Muslims in Athens fear their own official place of worship, delayed for over a decade, will be held back again. The project to open a state-sanctioned mosque in Athens, the […]
(AFP) Norwegian intelligence and police on Tuesday arrested a man wanted in Italy over a terror plot, with media saying he is linked to an Islamist preacher extradited from Norway to Italy in March. The Norwegian intelligence service PST said the man […]
(AFP) Facebook said Monday it had permanently banned French comedian Dieudonne, a convicted anti-Semite, from its platform and from Instagram for content it said mocked Holocaust victims. It also said some of his posts used “dehumanising terms against Jews.” “In line with […]
(AFP) Out in the Mediterranean, under a baking sun, fisherman Ezio Billeci comes across a boat of vulnerable migrants and calls for help, but for hours the only response he gets from Italian authorities is to “stand by.” The episode off the […]
(AFP) When Amir Hussein was finally allowed to leave the horrific migrant camp of Moria on the Greek island of Lesbos, it was supposed to be the end of a year-long odyssey. “After (experiencing) hell in Moria, we had not expected to […]
(AFP) Italy’s Senate voted on Thursday to strip far-right chief Matteo Salvini of his parliamentary immunity, paving the way for him to face trial, for a second time, over allegedly illegally detaining migrants at sea. Salvini, a senator, now looks set for […]
(AFP) French police on Wednesday evacuated some 1,500 migrants from a camp north of Paris where crowded living conditions and a lack of water and sanitation exposed them to a high risk of coronavirus infection. The migrants were taken from the camp […]
(AFP) Italy’s interior ministry on Wednesday said it was finding the migrant situation “much more complex” than in previous years, and was upping returns to Tunisia as it struggled to house new arrivals. “The coronavirus emergency and the consequent very serious economic […]
(AFP) The migrant rescue ship Ocean Viking was detained on Wednesday over technical irregularities, Italy’s coastguard said, a move blasted as “harassment” by the charity that runs the vessel. The ship had been allowed to disembark at a Sicilian port on July […]
(AFP) With the end of France’s coronavirus lockdown, the migrants who came to the country for a better future are back on the streets. Turfed out of the state-organised accommodation that housed them during the confinement period, the migrants are again scraping […]
(AFP) The first rays of the morning sun reveal entire families lying on the railway line or in abandoned wagons but when Greek police patrols appear, they evaporate into nearby fields. Among them is Abdullah, a 20-year-old Syrian, waiting for a train […]
(AFP) French judges on Monday ordered two men to stand trial for the brutal 2018 killing of an elderly Jewish woman that prompted an outcry over a rise in anti-Semitic acts. Mireille Knoll, 85 and suffering from Parkinson’s disease, was stabbed in […]
(AFP) Two Syrians have been arrested in Germany on suspicion of helping to carry out an execution by an Islamist terrorist group linked to Al-Qaeda, prosecutors said Monday. Named only as Khedr A.K. and Sami A.S., the men are accused of having […]
(AFP) More than 500 migrants have arrived on Lampedusa over the past two days, the UN’s migration agency said Friday, as people take advantage of calm seas to attempt the perilous Mediterranean crossing to Europe. Since the start of summer, the island […]
(AFP) A French jihadist given a 30-year jail term last week for crimes committed in Syria will be retried after prosecutors appealed Thursday seeking life imprisonment. On Friday, a court jailed Tyler Vilus, 30, for crimes committed between 2013 and 2015 when […]
(AFP) It is “shameful” that the European Union has still not found a solution for the care of asylum seekers five years after the migration crisis, German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, whose country holds the EU presidency, said Tuesday. Seehofer was speaking […]
(AFP) The number of foreign medical graduates from Muslim-majority countries coming to the United States to become doctors has declined by 15 percent under the Trump administration, exacerbating shortages in America’s physician workforce, a study said Monday. International medical graduates represent about […]
(AFP) Italy on Sunday authorised charity vessel Ocean Viking to transfer 180 migrants rescued in the Mediterranean to a ship in Sicily for quarantine, the ship’s operator and the government said. Those on board exploded with joy at the announcement that their […]
(AFP) Italy is carrying out tests on 180 migrants rescued in the Mediterranean with a view to transferring them to a quarantine vessel in Sicily, an interior ministry source said Saturday. The migrants have been on the Ocean Viking ship operated by […]
(AFP) After suicide attempts, fights erupting on board, and migrants jumping into the sea, charity SOS Mediterranee launched an emergency alert on Friday, demanding to be allowed to immediately disembark at a safe port. The humanitarian group, whose vessel the Ocean Viking […]
(AFP) Eight migrants who disembarked in Sicily this week after being rescued in the Mediterranean by a charity boat are in quarantine after testing positive for coronavirus, the group Mediterranea said. The eight migrants were part of a group of 43 people […]
(AFP) Italian police said Wednesday they had seized a 14-tonne haul of amphetamines allegedly made by the Islamic State group in Syria, calling it the biggest seizure of such drugs in the world. The drug, in the form of around 84 million […]
(AFP) The young Sudanese man cast off his T-shirt and cried desperately out to sea: “I swear to you, I’m going to jump. I don’t know how to swim but I can’t stay here anymore!” After just over a week at sea, […]
(AFP) The wife of an Islamist convicted of planning a biological bomb attack in Germany with the deadly poison ricin was jailed for eight years on Friday for helping him to plan the atrocity. A court in Duesseldorf found the 44-year-old German […]
(AFP) “Here, I don’t exist — I die little by little,” said Hamid, a young Algerian, his gaze fixed on Mediterranean waters he sees as his route to a better future. “My only hope is to leave for Europe.” Like thousands of […]
(AFP) A US soldier with links to neo-Nazis plotted to have Islamic extremists attack his unit in Turkey in hopes of sparking a new “10-year war” in the Middle East, the Justice Department charged Monday. An indictment unsealed in New York said […]
(AFP) The government said Monday it had brought home 10 French children of jihadist fighters overnight from a refugee camp in Syria, the latest in a piecemeal repatriation process since the Islamic State group was ousted from its Syrian base in March […]
(AFP) A Syrian doctor living in Germany has been arrested on suspicion of crimes against humanity in his country of origin, prosecutors said Monday in the latest German move against suspected war crimes in Syria. The suspect, identified as Alaa M., is […]
(AFP) Greece announced on Saturday another extension of the coronavirus lockdown on its teeming migrant camps, hours after some 2,000 people protested in central Athens to mark World Refugee Day and denounce the government’s treatment of migrants. The migration ministry said confinement […]
(AFP) Dozens of groups helping asylum seekers in Greece risk being edged out in a government move to tighten what it calls “opaque” rules overseeing charities, sparking concern that crucial support will be cut. Critics warn that the new registration regulations will […]
(AFP) France’s highest constitutional authority on Thursday ruled that it objected to a key part of new legislation that aims to fight hatred online but has also sparked controversy among critics as harming civil liberties. The Constitutional Council ruled that certain new […]
(AFP) Three teenagers have been charged in France after a high-school girl received death threats for an expletive-laden social media rant against Islam, a prosecutor said Wednesday. The case of 16-year-old Mila — who called Islam “a shitty religion” on an Instagram […]
(AFP) The French government on Tuesday vowed to bring an end to violence in the usually placid eastern city of Dijon after it was hit by a fourth night of unrest linked to score-settling by members of the Chechen community. According to […]
(AFP) Inside Greece’s largest asylum-seeker camp on the island of Lesbos, the coronavirus is an oft-heard threat that has kept migrant facilities around the country under lockdown since March. But knife crime is the real killer. Whereas COVID-19 has yet to surface […]
(AFP) The Saudi ambassador was summoned to the Danish foreign ministry on Wednesday after terrorism charges were laid against three leaders of an Iranian Arab separatist group based in Denmark. They are suspected of having received funds from Saudi Arabia. Danish police […]
(AFP) Italian police said Wednesday they had retrieved a work by famed street artist Banksy commemorating the victims of the November 2015 Paris terror attacks stolen from the Bataclan concert hall. The work was an image of a girl in mourning painted […]
(AFP) Italy’s interior ministry said on Saturday it had expelled a Tunisian national linked to the man who carried out a deadly 2016 attack on a Berlin Christmas market. Montassar Yaakoubi, described by the ministry as “an associate of the Tunisian terrorist […]
(AFP) In the thick of the coronavirus lockdown in Cyprus, authorities gave a group of asylum seekers a stark choice: move to an overcrowded camp or go home. The Mediterranean island deemed it a necessary step to save money — the tiny […]
(AFP) Abdelkader Rahmoun hasn’t slept in days. The 44-year-old Syrian and his family are among thousands of recognised refugees about to lose the temporary homes they were given under Greece’s asylum seeker housing scheme. On Monday the first departures began, with dozens […]
(AFP) Italian police on Sunday corrected a report that a record 400 migrants had landed on a beach in Sicily, saying the number was only around 70, the ANSA news agency reported. A single wooden fishing boat some 10 metres (35 feet) […]
(AFP) A Syrian doctor living in Germany is being investigated on suspicion of carrying out crimes against humanity at a military hospital in the war-torn country, a report in Spiegel magazine Friday said. Federal prosecutors suspect the man of beating and torturing men […]
(AFP) German federal prosecutors said Wednesday they were investigating an alleged member of the Islamic State terrorist group suspected of a series of acid and arson attacks, and of planning killings with a gun and explosives. The suspect, named only as Muharrem […]
(AFP) French police are holding a man of Afghan nationality after a prominent activist in the north of France who helped migrants was bludgeoned to death at his home, prosecutors said Wednesday. The attacker entered the home of Jean Dussine in Bretteville, […]
(AFP) A French court on Wednesday scrapped all charges against a man who helped migrants enter the country illegally, the final chapter in a groundbreaking case that defined so-called “crimes of solidarity.” Cedric Herrou, an olive farmer in southern France who helped […]
(AFP) When plans were leaked last week to move dozens of asylum seekers from an island camp to a hotel in the northern Greek village of Arnissa, there was a swift and violent response. Around 250 people burned and looted the empty […]
(AFP) Many Africans are managing to evade coronavirus lockdown barriers in Niger, the Sahel’s migrant crossroads, as they press on with their perilous desert trek to the Mediterranean Sea and ultimately Europe. The migrant flow has slowed down but not dried up […]
(AFP) The UN voiced alarm Friday at reports that countries are failing to help migrants in distress on the Mediterranean Sea, blocking assistance by NGOs and coordinating pushbacks of their boats. UN rights office spokesman Rupert Colville warned during a virtual press […]
(AFP) German police on Thursday raided apartments belonging to several suspected Islamists in Berlin, over allegations they fraudulently obtained state payouts set up for the coronavirus crisis. Officers searched the homes and vehicles of five people “belonging to the Salafist scene,” police […]
(AFP) The head of Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement on Monday condemned Germany’s ban on his group as bowing to US pressure and insisted it was not active in the country. Germany designated Hezbollah a “Shiite terrorist organisation” on Thursday as its security forces […]
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