Doctors Without Borders

Some 970 migrants were rescued off the coast of Libya on March 2, the Italian Coast Guard said, as the numbers attempting to cross the Mediterranean to Europe continue to rise.

Even before the March 2 arrivals, more than 13,400 people had arrived on Italy's shores so far this year - an increase of 50 to 70 percent compared with 2016 and 2015.

The head of EU border agency Frontex on Feb. 27 criticized charities that rescue migrants off Libya, arguing that they encourage the traffickers who profit from the dangerous Mediterranean crossings.

More than 1,300 migrants were rescued in the Mediterranean in one day alone, reported the Italian coast guard.

Crews of Italian and British naval and trade ships and non-governmental organisations participated in a total of 13 rescue operations. The traffickers loaded migrants in vessels unfit for long-distance travel.

Following the deaths of three migrants in less than a week and criticism from humanitarian groups, the government has started making progress in improving conditions at the Moria processing center on the eastern Aegean island of Lesvos.

U.S. President Donald Trump's executive order to ban people from seven Muslim-majority countries to enter the country and a temporary decision to halt refugee admission has caused a global backlash varying from Iraq to the United Nations. 

BELGRADE - Thousands of migrants are trapped in scarce living conditions in freezing temperatures on the Greek islands and the Balkans due to "cynical" policies of the European authorities, the Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders, or MSF) said in a statement Monday.

"I cannot answer how I feel when after four months of waiting, the only solution they can offer is to give you a bigger tent, when they forget your name and call you by the number of your tent." Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres, MSF) program director Apostolos Veizis received this message from a refugee living at the camp in Vasilika, Thessaloniki last July.The message was sign

The tents in the Moria hotspot in Lesvos, Greece are covered with snow as the bad weather engulfs the islands of the Aegean Sea.

According to information there has been a serious problem with heating in the last days in Chios and Samos too, which the almost arctic temperatures made even worse now.

Rescuers plucked 1,164 people from rubber and wooden boats in the Mediterranean under heavy thunderstorms on Dec. 11 and recovered six dead bodies during the operations, relief services said. 

Over 1,300 migrants have been rescued from the Mediterranean over the past 48 hours with 16 bodies recovered, the Italian Coast Guard said Dec. 5.

On Dec. 4, the Italian Coast Guard ship Diciotti discovered 11 bodies on a boat which had run into difficulty, while a commercial vessel intervening at another boat found three dead.