News Digest

50 migrants found dead in hold of boat as crisis raises tensions across Europe

The bodies of about 50 migrants have been found in the hold of a boat off Libya. The bodies were discovered during a rescue operation which saved 430 other people, according to the Italian coast guard. The Swedish ship Poseidon, working with the EU’s Frontex border control agency, had gone to help the people on the boat where the bodies were found. The rescue was one of 10 requests for assistance that arrived at the coast guard’s operations centre today. Libya-based smugglers have taken advantage of calm seas to send boats overloaded with migrants to Europe. The deaths add to the more than 2,400 people who have died at sea this year, making the dangerous Mediterranean crossing to Europe.

We left because we were scared, we had fear, bombs, war, killing, death… that’s why we left Syria. If I go to Europe, I think it’s going to be better… better than my life in Syria.

Syrian refugee in Hungary

Earlier today, police used teargas on an angry mob in Hungary while German leader Angela Merkel was jeered by far-right protesters in the latest signs of deepening tensions over the migrant crisis. The clashes on the Hungarian border at Roszke saw riot officers use teargas to disperse a crowd of about 200 migrants who had refused to be fingerprinted and were trying to leave a processing centre. It came the day after a record 2,533 people – most of them from Syria, Afghanistan and Pakistan – were caught entering Hungary from Serbia on Tuesday. More may have passed unnoticed, walking through gaps in an unfinished razor wire barrier across the border prompting officials to dispatch 2,000 “border hunters” to stem the flow. In Germany, Mrs Merkel was booed and called a traitor by extremists when she visited a refugee centre in Heidenau. The centre was the focus of a weekend of violent protests which left dozens of police officers injured.

Building fences, using tear gas and other forms of violence against migrants and asylum seekers, detention, withholding access to basics such as shelter, food or water and using threatening language or hateful speech will not stop migrants from coming

UN migrant rights spokesman François Crépeau