A French patrol ship rescued 217 migrants from three small boats that had run into trouble off the coast of Libya on Saturday, the maritime police said in a statement.
When Libyan government forces and Islamist militants battled with artillery guns right in his district, Khalil al-Barassi knew it was time to pack up. He moved his family into an abandoned schoolhouse, where they live on aid from the Red Crescent, while the city around them falls to pieces.
The Tunisian man accused of piloting a migrant boat that sank off Libya, killing more than 700 people, is himself a migrant who was forced at gunpoint to captain the ship because of his experience as a fisherman, his brother said on Saturday.
European efforts to save the lives of migrants drowning in the Mediterranean must involve search and rescue operations near the shores of Libya, Amnesty International said on Saturday as hundreds more people arrived in Italy from North Africa.
Italian investigators are piecing together a picture of beatings and abuse that hundreds of Africans and Bangladeshis suffered before setting sail from Libya to Italy, only to drown late on Saturday in one of the worst migrant shipwrecks ever in the Mediterranean.
Prosecutors blamed the Tunisian captain of a fishing boat for causing the deaths of hundreds of migrants locked below decks when his vessel capsized in the Mediterranean, in the weekend shipwreck that has shocked Europe.
The European Union proposed doubling the size of its Mediterranean search and rescue operations on Monday, as the first bodies were brought ashore of some 900 people feared killed in the deadliest shipwreck while trying to reach Europe.
A video purportedly made by Islamic State and posted on social media sites on Sunday appeared to show militants shooting and beheading about 30 Ethiopian Christians in Libya.
U.S President Barack Obama and Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi will meet in Washington next month to discuss security and economic issues, including the situation in neighboring Libya, the White House said in a statement on Monday.
European Union foreign ministers gathered in Luxembourg on Monday under pressure to produce more than words as bodies were brought ashore in Malta among hundreds feared drowned in the latest Mediterranean migrant tragedy.
As many as 700 migrants were feared dead on Sunday after their boat capsized in the Mediterranean, raising pressure on Europe to face down anti-immigrant bias and find money for support as turmoil in Libya and the Middle East worsens the crisis.
Tunisian security forces have arrested 23 more suspected Islamist militants as part of a crackdown after last month's Bardo museum attack in which two gunmen killed 21 foreign tourists, the interior ministry said on Friday.
Arab leaders at a summit in Egypt announced the formation of a unified military force to counter growing security threats from Yemen to Libya, and as regional heavyweights Saudi Arabia and Iran engage in sectarian proxy wars.
The Arab League will discuss the crisis in Yemen on Thursday, the regional body's deputy secretary general said, after the country's foreign minister called on Arab states to intervene militarily to halt an advance by the Shi'ite Houthi militia.
Libya's warring groups could agree this week on the leaders of a national unity government to try to overcome the conflict in the North African country, but it will not be easy, a U.N. envoy said on Monday.
Tunisia's President Beji Caid Essebsi said on Sunday that a third gunman involved in an attack that killed 23 people, mostly foreign tourists, at a Tunis museum last week was on the run.
Huge gaps exist in the emails former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has provided to a congressional committee investigating the 2012 attack on a U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, the panel's chairman said on Sunday.
The United Nations said on Saturday talks with Libya's warring factions had made progress and delegates would return to Morocco next week for more negotiations after consultations at home on forming a unity government.
U.N. sanctions monitors said on Friday they are concerned that if a United Nations Security Council committee approves a request by Libya's government for weapons, tanks and jets, some of the equipment could be diverted to militias supporting them.
Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush on Friday stepped up his criticism of Hillary Clinton, calling it "baffling" that she stored official U.S. State Department emails on a personal server rather than safer government systems.
