Thugs shouting 'Allah is great' were behind a stampede at a Good Friday parade in Seville that hospitalized 17 people
| A sign of the overall mood in Europe. |
- Police have launched an investigation following the incident in Seville
- The arrests were made following a late night procession in the Spanish city
- Police have released images on social media seeking the public's help
- Eight people have been arrested - seven non-Arabic origin locals plus a Senegalese - while half of those initially hospitalized were released
- Police have ruled out any link between the suspects and terrorist groups
More than 5,000 rescued off Libyan coast in 48 hours
[DW] The Italian coast guard and assisting NGOs have saved thousands of migrants from the Mediterranean over Easter weekend, more than 2,000 on Friday and at least 3,000 on Saturday. Jugend Rettet Iuventa told AFP there were 1,000 migrants still waiting to be rescued from rubber dinghies and other crafts on the water. Rescue missions were ongoing.
EU border control agency Frontex has accused non-government groups rescuing migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea from Libya into Europe of acting "like taxis." Italian prosecutors have suggested the non-government affiliated groups have links to traffickers, a claim the groups have strongly denied.
More than 24,000 migrants have crossed the Mediterranean Sea from Libya to Italy over the first three months of 2017, much more than the 18,000 that crossed during the same time period in 2016, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
However, the death toll for migrants crossing into Europe is much lower so far in 2017. The IOM says nearly 800 migrants have died trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea in 2017. More than 5,000 migrants died in the Mediterranean Sea in 2016.
Greece, Spain in migrant rescues
[AlAhram] The Greek coastguard said Saturday it was escorting a vessel carrying around 50 migrants towards the island of Cephalonia in the Ionian sea after answering two mayday calls. An Italian sea rescue helicopter joined three Greek patrol boats in an operation coordinated by EU border control agency Frontex to locate the vessel after receiving the distress calls.
Italy has become the prime European entry point for tens of thousands of migrants since last year's EU-Turkish agreement to stem the flow across the Aegean Sea and since the closure of the Balkan route, also last year.
Spanish police and maritime rescue authorities meanwhile said they had rescued around 200 people off Spain's southern and eastern seaboard since Wednesday. Spanish authorities said they picked up 62 North Africans, including 18 minors, at Barbate, near the Strait of Gibraltar and 52 more sub-Saharan Africans at Motril in the deep south, likewise opposite the Moroccan coast. Those rescues followed others throughout the week around Spain's south coast and off the Balearic Islands.
According to the International Organization for Migration around 1,000 people reached Spain by sea between January 1 and April 11 with 47 more drowning. That compares with 27,000 arrivals and 603 deaths in Italy and 4,107 arrivals and 14 fatalities in Greece, according to IOM data.
French send 1,000 Dunkirk migrants to new camps
[AlAhram] Officials in northern France say an operation to shelter more than 1,000 migrants has ended, five days after the camp they were staying in outside the port city of Dunkirk burned down. The prefecture for the Nord said a total of 1,061 migrants were given new shelter as of Saturday, most sent to migrant centers around France. About 30 others were arrested by border police for alleged links to people smugglers or for disturbing public order.
The migrants, most looking to cross the English Channel to Britain, were without shelter after a fire ravaged the wooden shelters of the Grande-Synthe camp, opened last year by Doctors Without Borders.
French authorities dismantled a far larger migrant camp in nearby Calais last October.