Libya

The second captain of a Turkish cargo ship, which was attacked off Libya on May 10, has said Libyan authorities had only "warned us with a bomb" during the attack.

ANSA sent shivers through southern Europe on Tuesday with a report that Islamic State (ISIS) terrorists will be ferried into Italy “in the coming weeks” concealed amongst illegal migrants loaded aboard various smugglers’ vessels.
The Italian news agency quotes Omar al Gawari, the information minister in Libya’s Tobruk government.

Turkey has called for a speedy political settlement to the Libyan problem a day after a Turkish cargo ship, "Tuna-1," was shelled off the Libyan coast and attacked from the air, killing one and wounding several others. 

The Libyan coast guard arrested about 600 African migrants, including a  pregnant woman and 18 minors, who were trying to board a fishing boat in an apparent attempt to land on some EU shore.

Libya, which is in chaos after Gaddafi’s downfall, has since become a portal for illegal immigration from sub-Saharan Africa into Europe via the Mediterranean.

A militia alliance that controls Libya's capital has carried out air strikes against positions of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) jihadist group in the coastal city of Sirte, an official said.
 

European Union leaders gathering for an extraordinary summit are facing calls from all sides to take emergency action to save lives in the Mediterranean, where hundreds of migrants are missing and feared drowned in recent days.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees has noted that 1,300 emigrants have found their death in the Mediterranean only in April.

The international community has condemned the slaughter of at least 28 Ethiopian Christians in an Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) video, with Ethiopia confirming that the victims were its citizens. 

Islamic State (IS) released a new video, which purportedly shows the killing of up to thirty Ethiopian Christians in Libya.

The video depicts one group of men being beheaded on a beach and another group being shot in the head in a desert, the BBC reports.

The victims are believed to be members of the Ethiopian Church, who had been captured by IS militants in Libya.

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras urged the European Union on Sunday to urgently come up with a plan to tackle a mounting migrant humanitarian crisis in the Mediterranean.

"The Mediterranean must stop being a graveyard sea and southern European countries a storage of human souls,» Tsipras said in a televised address.