Europe Migrants Crisis

EU chief Ursula von der Leyen on Thursday announced $1 billion in aid for Lebanon during a visit to the country mired in an economic meltdown exacerbated by a migrant crisis and the threat of war with Israel.

It was a Sunday that Italian fisherman Vincenzo Luciano will never forget. Well before dawn he ran to the beach near his house and started pulling bodies from the sea, victims of a deadly migrant shipwreck that has so far claimed 67 lives.

Mediterranean countries on major migrant routes into Europe expect over 150,000 arrivals this year as food shortages caused by the Ukraine conflict threaten a new migration wave from Africa and the Middle East.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki on Sunday called the migrant crisis on the Belarusian-Polish border, the EU's eastern frontier, the "greatest attempt to destabilise Europe" since the Cold War.

The Kremlin said Thursday that Europe should not blame Russia for "all problems", as tensions with the West simmer over Ukraine and the migrant crisis on the Belarus-Poland border.

Turkey banned Syrian, Yemeni and Iraqi citizens from flights to Belarus' capital Minsk on Friday, potentially closing off one of the routes used by migrants that the EU says have been flown in by Belarus to create a deliberate humanitarian crisis.

EU leaders struck a deal on migration after all-night talks, the bloc's president Donald Tusk said Friday, after Italy had blocked an agreement until it got more help on the issue.

EU states that refuse to accept migrants should face financial penalties, French President Emmanuel Macron said Saturday, prompting a furious response from Rome on the eve of an emergency mini-summit in Brussels about the escalating crisis dividing Europe.

More than 33,000 migrants have died at sea trying to reach European shores since 2000, making the Mediterranean "by far the world's deadliest border", the United Nations migration agency said on Friday.

The Czech president has linked recent attacks in Europe to the ongoing influx of migrants escaping war-torn, poverty-stricken countries.

Thousands of rebels and fighters were still waiting on Thursday to be evacuated from the last rebel bastion in Aleppo city but difficulties including harsh weather were complicating the final phase of the operation, a rebel spokesman said.

Some 400 migrants from Africa stormed a border fence to enter Spain's North African enclave of Ceuta from Morocco on Friday, the Spanish Interior Ministry said.

The EU recommended on Thursday that member states resume sending asylum seekers back to Greece from March next year, after transfers were halted for five years because of poor conditions there.

A Danish lawmaker faced criticism on Thursday for saying boats carrying migrants could be prevented from reaching Europe by firing "warning shots" at them.

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen proposed on Thursday that the children of illegal immigrants should be refused school places as part of tough proposals to restrict public services.

EU chief Ursula von der Leyen on Thursday announced $1 billion in aid for Lebanon during a visit to the country mired in an economic meltdown exacerbated by a migrant crisis and the threat of war with Israel.

It was a Sunday that Italian fisherman Vincenzo Luciano will never forget. Well before dawn he ran to the beach near his house and started pulling bodies from the sea, victims of a deadly migrant shipwreck that has so far claimed 67 lives.

Mediterranean countries on major migrant routes into Europe expect over 150,000 arrivals this year as food shortages caused by the Ukraine conflict threaten a new migration wave from Africa and the Middle East.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki on Sunday called the migrant crisis on the Belarusian-Polish border, the EU's eastern frontier, the "greatest attempt to destabilise Europe" since the Cold War.

The Kremlin said Thursday that Europe should not blame Russia for "all problems", as tensions with the West simmer over Ukraine and the migrant crisis on the Belarus-Poland border.

Turkey banned Syrian, Yemeni and Iraqi citizens from flights to Belarus' capital Minsk on Friday, potentially closing off one of the routes used by migrants that the EU says have been flown in by Belarus to create a deliberate humanitarian crisis.

EU leaders struck a deal on migration after all-night talks, the bloc's president Donald Tusk said Friday, after Italy had blocked an agreement until it got more help on the issue.

EU states that refuse to accept migrants should face financial penalties, French President Emmanuel Macron said Saturday, prompting a furious response from Rome on the eve of an emergency mini-summit in Brussels about the escalating crisis dividing Europe.

More than 33,000 migrants have died at sea trying to reach European shores since 2000, making the Mediterranean "by far the world's deadliest border", the United Nations migration agency said on Friday.

The Czech president has linked recent attacks in Europe to the ongoing influx of migrants escaping war-torn, poverty-stricken countries.

Thousands of rebels and fighters were still waiting on Thursday to be evacuated from the last rebel bastion in Aleppo city but difficulties including harsh weather were complicating the final phase of the operation, a rebel spokesman said.

Some 400 migrants from Africa stormed a border fence to enter Spain's North African enclave of Ceuta from Morocco on Friday, the Spanish Interior Ministry said.

The EU recommended on Thursday that member states resume sending asylum seekers back to Greece from March next year, after transfers were halted for five years because of poor conditions there.

A Danish lawmaker faced criticism on Thursday for saying boats carrying migrants could be prevented from reaching Europe by firing "warning shots" at them.

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen proposed on Thursday that the children of illegal immigrants should be refused school places as part of tough proposals to restrict public services.