The number of new stay permits issued to migrants and refugees in Italy decreased in 2018, according to the Italian statistics bureau ISTAT. The number of stay permits issued to asylum seekers went down over 40%.
Police in Australia have charged an Iraqi man with organizing a "people-smuggling venture" that led to more than 350 asylum seekers drowning at sea. The ill-fated boat sank in international waters in 2001.
The Ocean Viking has reportedly rescued 104 migrants from a rubber dinghy off the coast of Libya. Among them are 40 minors, ten women and two babies, according to MSF, which operates the migrant rescue ship.
Italian police has arrested two men in Foggia on hate crime charges. They allegedly threw stones at foreign farmworkers last summer., injuring several migrants.
A new law gives Iranian mothers who are married to foreign citizens the right to pass their citizenship to their children. 800,000 children of Iranian women and Afghan men can now become citizens. One of them -- 27-year-old Soheil1