The Belarusian strongman has encouraged migrants to continue their journey into the European Union. "We will not try to catch you, beat you, and hold you behind barbed wire," he said.

Many of the migrants currently languishing at the Poland-Belarus border come from Iraq. Most of them hail from the autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan in the north of the country. This area is often described as a haven of peace, but the reality is somewhat darker. Our correspondent Lucile Wassermann went to meet the Iraqis ready to risk everything to flee their region.

France is hosting an international conference to help Libya prepare for elections at the end of 2021. The oil-rich nation is ruled by a fragile unity government put in place after nearly a decade of civil war. European leaders are especially keen to stabilize the country.

Citizens of Afghanistan were by far the biggest group of people applying for asylum in the EU, Switzerland and Norway in September 2021.

Activists who helped migrants reach Greece in 2018 are on trial on the island of Lesbos. The accusations against them include spying and human trafficking. DW caught up with some of those facing the most serious charges.

A parliamentary committee has said holding the vote would be "impossible." The country's election board has now suggested January 24 as an alternative.

After much speculation, Libya's polls have been postponed. Organisers said it’s ‘impossible’ to hold the vote on Friday. The electoral commission has suggested January 24th as the new deadline. A Tunisian court sentences an ex-President Moncef Marzouki to four years in prison. He’s a vocal critic of the current leader, who has described current leader Kais Saied as a "dictator". Nigeria destroys more than million doses of expired Covid vaccines. As rich countries donate jabs with short shelf life, poorer nations continue their fight against vaccine hesitancy.

The Greek and Tunisian coast guards have also reported successful rescue missions. Nonetheless, dozens of people have died in shipwrecks in the Mediterranean over the past several days.

Nationalists in the UK are hunting down people who have fled across the Channel to England in small boats and claim the government is not doing enough to prevent illegal immigration. The number of migrants arriving this way has reached a new high.

Guatemalan authorities have said they are working "humanely" to return people to their countries of origin. Over the past year, large caravans of migrants have been stopped trying to cross Central American countries.

There's growing concern about increasing numbers of migrants arriving on the island of Lampedusa, Italy. The island has long been a magnet for people hoping to apply for asylum in Europe – and recent weeks have seen hundreds of arrivals.

we spoke to members of two refugee communities currently blocked in countries and requesting resettlement. First, in Indonesia, members of the Hazara ethnic minority from Afghanistan told us about their rising desperation to be moved to a third country after police violence and a suicide in their community. Some of these refugees have spent over a decade in Indonesia, where they are unable to drive, work or go to school.