aid groups

A Spanish migrant aid group is deciding whether to continue its Mediterranean rescue mission after it said its boat was targeted by Libya's coastguard, reported BBC.

Proactiva Open Arms, one of three groups still operating off Libya, said its boat was in international waters when it was told to head to port in Libya or come under fire.

The Italian government yesterday (13 August) welcomed Libya’s decision to bar foreign vessels from a stretch of water off its coast,a move that has prompted almost all international charities to halt migrant search and rescue operations in the area.

After eight months of grinding urban warfare, Iraqi government troops on June 29 captured the ruined mosque in Mosul from where Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) proclaimed its self-styled caliphate three years ago, the Iraqi military said.

The battle to oust the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) from its stronghold of Raqqa is creating daunting challenges for aid groups responding to the latest humanitarian crisis in the Syrian conflict.

At least ten migrants have died after their Europe-bound boats sank off Libya's coast and some 100 people are missing, coastguard officials and aid groups said on June 10.

Eight bodies were found on an inflatable craft that can carry up to 120 passengers, said Colonel Fathi al-Rayani, head of the coastguard in Garabulli, 60 kilometres (40 miles) east of Tripoli.

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.

Syria's air force carried out the September 2016 raid that killed at least 10 aid workers in Aleppo province by deliberately targeting a humanitarian convoy, a U.N.-backed probe said on March 1.  

South Sudan on Feb. 20 declared famine in some parts of the country, with more than three years of war leaving nearly five million hungry in what aid groups called a "man-made" tragedy.

Isaiah Chol Aruai, chairman of South Sudan's National Bureau of Statistics, said some parts of the northern Greater Unity region "are classified in famine, or... risk of famine."

As authorities scramble to improve accommodation for thousands of migrants on Aegean islands amid forecasts of a new cold snap, a spokesperson for the United Nations refugee agency said Greek authorities have ignored proposals on how to ameliorate living conditions.

EU interior ministers will consider plans on Thursday to finance camps in Africa where the UN refugee agency and aid groups would process migrants to prevent them trying to cross the Mediterranean to Europe.