Six EU member states have sent a letter to the executive branch of the Taliban militia warning the deportation of Afghan refugees whose asylum applications have been rejected.

According to the info migrants, A large-scale COVID vaccination drive for asylum seekers has started on three Greek Aegean Islands. In Europe, some migrant populations are prone to "low vaccine uptake," according to a new study.

On Thursday (June 3), Greek authorities launched a vaccination campaign for tens of thousands of asylum seekers living in government-run facilities. People living in accommodation centers on the islands of Lesbos, Chios and Samos in the Aegean Sea were the first to be vaccinated.

According to officials with the Greek Health Ministry, the program used the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Later this week, the program is supposed to be rolled out on other Greek islands and the mainland, the officials added.

According to the info migrants, The first of more than 450 people rescued from the Mediterranean by the Sea-Watch 4 have gone ashore in Sicily. The migrants included children and unaccompanied minors who had attempted the dangerous journey from Libya.

Sea-Watch said its crew had rescued 455 migrants in distress in four separate operations since Thursday. One person was medically evacuated by Italian authorities. The remaining migrants were crowded onto the 60-meter-long vessel.

The organization had called for the migrants to be allowed to go ashore, as they included pregnant women and children as well as unaccompanied minors. Sea-Watch said many were traumatized as a result of their time in Libya, adding that some had already tried to cross the Mediterranean several times.

According to the info migrants, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has condemned the Greek government's decision to close the Kara Tepe 1 refugee camp on the island of Lesbos. The camp is considered "one of the few places that guaranteed security and dignity to nearly 400 vulnerable men, women and children."

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has condemned the Greek government's decision, announced on April 24, to close the Kara Tepe 1 refugee camp on the island of Lesbos. The organization said the facility was "one of the few places that guaranteed security and dignity to about 400 vulnerable men, women and children. They will be transferred to the new camp Moria that does not guarantee security and dignity."

According to the info migrants, A total of 113 migrants on seven small boats arrived safely in the UK port of Dover on Monday. About 72 were stopped from crossing by the French authorities.

Although the UK government recently announced it would be making life difficult for migrants who arrive in the UK by "illegal routes," like crossing the Channel between the continent and England, some are undeterred.

More than 1,500 migrants have crossed the Channel to the UK so far this year. During 2020, more than 8,000 made the journey. According to Kent Online the number arriving this year is "more than double" that of the same period last year. The crossings really started increasing in 2020 over the summer months when the weather and coronavirus restrictions eased.

According to the info migrants, At least 39 people have died after their boat capsized off the coast of Djibouti in East Africa. The UN migration agency IOM said 16 of the victims were children.

A boat operated by people smugglers which was transporting about 60 migrants from Yemen capsized Monday on its way to Djibouti. By Tuesday morning the death toll had risen to at least 39, according to the UN migration agency IOM.

The IOM’s regional director for East and Horn of Africa, Mohammed Abdiker, said that the victims included 16 children. Fourteen people survived the incident, he added in a tweet. It was the second such tragedy in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which separates Djibouti from Yemen, in just over a month, according to the IOM.

According to the info migrants, Human Rights Watch has warned that migrants living in an area of a camp in Lesbos contaminated with lead are at serious risk. It says that children and pregnant women could develop lead poisoning if the government fails to act.

Migrants at a camp in Lesbos remain at risk of lead contamination, the international nongovernment organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a statement on April 1.

"Based on the results of testing by the Greek government's own experts, it is clear that young children and pregnant women are at serious risk when living on and playing in soil and dust contaminated by lead," said Belkis Wille, senior crisis and conflict researcher at Human Rights Watch.

According to the info migrants, The heated debate over alleged pushbacks of migrants on the Greek-Turkish border continues: After the Greek government denied allegations on Sunday, rights groups on Monday deplored the lack of "an efficient investigation" by Greece.

Half a dozen Greek non-governmental organizations on Monday (February 15) denounced what they said was the lack of an investigation of reports that Greece is illegally pushing migrants back over the border into Turkey.

According to the info migrants, Sicilian authorities have now reported 49 positive COVID-19 tests from the group of 422 migrants who disembarked the Ocean Viking on Monday and Tuesday this week.

After running tests on 422 migrants rescued by the Ocean Viking non-governmental rescue vessel last week, Italian health authorities have reported 49 positive COVID-19 cases, according to the news agency dpa.

The search and rescue coordinator on board the Ocean Viking, Luisa Albera, said they had isolated those people on the ship as quickly as possible, adding that the ship was only 69 meters long; the migrants needed to be disembarked from the ship as soon as possible, she stressed.

According to the info migrants, 42 additional refugees arrived in the German city of Hanover from Greece on Wednesday, February 3. The group is part of a contingent of 1,553 vulnerable persons that Germany agreed to take from Greece after the fire in the Lesbos migrant camp Moria last September.

The flight carrying 42 refugees from Greece to Germany is the first arrival this year, confirmed the German interior ministry. The group includes children with medical needs and their families as well as people whose refugee status has already been recognized.

According to the info migrants, A center for asylum seekers in Cologne is under total lockdown after more than a third of residents tested positive for coronavirus. There are renewed concerns that asylum seekers in communal reception facilities in the country remain at high risk from the virus.

Police in Cologne sealed off the center in the inner Cologne suburb after 41 of the total of 108 residents tested positive for COVID-19. Of these cases, 31 were a variant of the virus from South Africa or Brazil. 16 staff also tested positive. At least 11 of them also had the South African mutation, city authorities said.

According to the info migrants, A Syrian NGO based in the United States has filed a case with the International Criminal Court (ICC) to demand an investigation into alleged abuse and mistreatment of refugees by Greek authorities.

The Syria Justice and Accountability Center filed the case , saying it had received witness testimony and video evidence to prove that refugees had been mistreated at Greek borders and in camps.

Greek security guards dispersed refugee protests using tear gas, and people were held in shabby and unhealthy conditions at overcrowded camps, the group cited as examples.

According to the info migrants, Amnesty International and aid workers continue to sound the alarm amid the worsening situation of migrants in northwest Bosnia. While those staying at the Lipa camp now have heated tents, hundreds in makeshift forest settlements and abandoned buildings have little access to aid.

The living conditions of the some 1,500 migrants stranded in northwest Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) are becoming increasingly miserable and dangerous. For months, they have been staying there without a roof over their heads and access to the most basic necessities.

After spending days in makeshift tents and containers amid freezing weather and snowstorms, many migrants and refugees staying at the Lipa camp near the border with Croatia are complaining of respiratory and skin infections, aid workers warn.