Two migrant mothers and their two children on board the German rescue ship Sea-Eye have refused to leave without their fathers, Italian officials and the NGO said on Friday.
A British-based nurse who used the threat of voodoo on five women to traffick them from Nigeria to work as prostitutes in
Germany was on Wednesday jailed for 14 years.
German charity Mission Lifeline, whose rescue ship with almost 240 African migrants aboard has been denied entry by Italy, Sunday fired back at Rome's far-right interior minister Matteo Salvini.
Germany's biggest media gala kicked into its usual glamorous swing last Friday, but now it is kicking up a storm after an event publication satirically advertised 'swimming lessons for refugees on the Mediterranean'.
This young Berliner tells The Local how he's been working with an NGO to search for refugees on the Mediterranean - and will soon bring that quest to the skies.
A photo of a dead migrant baby pulled from the Mediterranean was published by a charity hoping to force European leaders to grant migrants safe passage, after hundreds were presumed to have died at sea last week.
A privately-funded ship sets off to the Mediterranean sea from the German port of Bremerhaven on Thursday, hoping to save refugees from drowning as they make the dangerous crossing on unsafe boats.
UPDATE: Germany plans to expand its naval operations against human traffickers as part of an EU mission in the Mediterranean,
Chancellor Angela Merkel's cabinet decided Wednesday.
The Local's pointers for how to get started if you're interested in donating your money, unwanted possessions, time or skills to help refugees in Germany.
Germany's Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel published a 10-point plan on Monday to reform the way Europe deals with refugees.
Based on new projections for the number of asylum seekers expected to arrive in Germany this year, the country may have to find €10 billion to fund its already creaking system.
EU ministers failed to agree on Monday on how to redistribute a total of 40,000 migrants from overstretched Italy and Greece as several countries refused to fully participate in the immigration sharing programme.
Fabrice Leggeri, head of the European border agency Frontex, said in Berlin on Wednesday that he was planning more interventions around Greek islands in the Mediterranean.
European powerhouses France and Germany on Monday called on the EU to revise its plan to admit asylum seekers landing in Europe, saying there was insufficient "balance".
German forces will join in a pan-EU mission to stop people traffickers operating in the Mediterranean, agreed on at a meeting of foreign and defence ministers from across Europe in Brussels on Monday.
The German frigate 'Hesse' helped save 2,220 refugees off the coast of Libya on Thursday, in a mission carried out in cooperation with the Italian coast guard and navy.
Two German navy ships on Friday rescued nearly 400 migrants attempting to cross the Mediterranean to Europe, the defence ministry said, days after it joined a beefed-up EU mission.
Chancellor Angela Merkel pledged to send two navy ships for search and rescue efforts as EU leaders agreed on a plan in Brussels on Thursday to curb the soaring number of migrants dying as they seek a better life in Europe.
A vice-chairman of the Deutsche Bank Group and a former German ambassador are among the prominent Europeans who signed a statement on Thursday urging the EU to go beyond the plan made earlier this week.
After a boat with more than 900 people on board sank off the Libyan coast on Sunday, Amnesty International's General Secretary for Germany Selmin Çalışkan calls for change in Europe's Mediterranean policy.
“If we don't act now, we'll experience more tragedies” like the one that killed 950 people off the Libyan coast last weekend, European Parliament president Martin Schulz warned on Tuesday.
