New highlights: Yemini prisoners in Eritrea, Italy considers shutting out boats, mandate Special Rapporteur Eritrea extended

In this week’s news highlights, Italy is threatening to close its ports to foreign boats carrying stranded migrants and refugees; worrying reports state that hundreds of Yemeni prisoners are detained and abused, including at an AUE base in Eritrea; the mandate of the UN Special Rapporteur on Eritrea is extended; an in-depth report looks at how Israel aims to get rid of its Eritrean and Sudanese refugees; and 2.000 leave South Sudan each day to flee violence and hunger.

SAR operations by NGOs: new report inverts the relation of causality and clarifies role of NGOs

During the last months the NGOs that conduct the Search and Rescue (SAR) operations in the Mediterranean have been at the centre of a political and media storm.The report by Forensic Oceanography assesses that a toxic rhetoric has been created where the only victims are the NGOs, and most importantly no concrete evidence has been found in this “criminalization campaign”.The report goes beyond, and addresses not only the accusation of collusion in smuggling per se, but rather it challenges the assumptions reinforcing this accusation.

News Highlights: Infringement proceeding for relocation, new report on Eritrea, Sudan starts trial against human rights activist

In this week’s news highlights, the European Commission triggers procedures for sanctions against Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary on relocation quotas; a new report was published on human trafficking in the Horn of Africa; UN Special Rapporteur on Eritrea releases a new report and holds an interactive dialogue in the 35th session of the Human Rights Council; and South Sudanese president Kiir refused to attend a regional summit on South Sudanese security issues.