Lawyers

• U.N. says 850,000 to cross sea to Europe in 2015 and 2016

  At least 850,000 people are expected to cross the Mediterranean seeking refuge in Europe this year and next, the United Nations said on Tuesday, giving estimates that already look conservative.

• Austria plans to end measures allowing migrants from Hungary and move 'towards normality'

  Austria said on Sunday it planned to end emergency measures that have allowed thousands of refugees stranded in Hungary into Austria and Germany since Saturday and move step by step "towards normality".

• France to build Calais camp for 1,500 migrants

  France plans to build a camp this winter for as many as 1,500 migrants in the northern port city of Calais where twice that many are living in tents and hoping to make the sea-crossing to Britain.

• Unprecedented migrant crisis forces EU to seek answers

  European Union ministers were summoned on Sunday to meet in two weeks' time to seek urgent solutions to a migration crisis unprecedented in the bloc's history, as the mounting death toll on land and sea forced governments to respond.

• Mediterranean refugee and migrant numbers pass 300,000 in 2015

  The number of refugees and migrants crossing the Mediterranean to reach Europe has passed 300,000 this year, up from 219,000 in the whole of 2014, the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said on Friday.

• Derelict Kos hotel a haven for migrants trapped in Greece

  Mohammed Ibrahim fled fighting in Afghanistan for a better life in Germany but found himself trapped in a derelict hotel on the Greek island of Kos. He has little food and water, but still hopes to find a way to leave soon.

• More than 200 feared dead in sinking of migrant boat

  Hopes faded of finding more survivors on Thursday from a shipwreck in which 200 migrants are feared drowned, as rescue ships were called to the aid of more migrant boats in the same area of the Mediterranean.

• Pope says abuse of migrants "makes one cry," visits Turin Shroud

  Pope Francis said on Sunday the mistreatment of migrants escaping war and injustice "makes one cry" as he visited the northern Italian city of Turin, stopping to pray before an icon some Christians believe is Jesus' burial cloth.

• International flotilla rescues 5,900 from Mediterranean in a weekend

  An international rescue fleet plucked almost 5,900 migrants from rickety boats making the perilous sea crossing for North Africa to Europe on Saturday and Sunday, Italy's coastguard said.

• International effort rescues over 5,000 Mediterranean migrants

  The corpses of 17 migrants were brought ashore in Sicily aboard an Italian naval vessel on Sunday along with 454 survivors as efforts intensified to rescue people fleeing war and poverty in Africa and the Middle East.

• Italy says over 900 migrants rescued at sea, one dead

  More than 900 migrants were rescued in one day from three overcrowded boats en route to Europe from North Africa, an Italian coast guard official said on Thursday. One body was recovered.

• EU seeks naval mission in Mediterranean to go after smugglers

  The EU's foreign policy chief pushed on Monday for a naval mission in the Mediterranean to target Libyans smuggling people to Europe, saying that an EU agreement would hasten the U.N. mandate that the plan needs to succeed.

• Niger passes law to tackle migrant smuggling, first in West Africa

  Niger has approved a law against the smuggling of migrants in an effort to stem the deadly flow of vulnerable Africans across its vast desert north, many of them headed toward Libya and on to Europe.

• French patrol ship rescues 217 migrants off Libya coast

  A French patrol ship rescued 217 migrants from three small boats that had run into trouble off the coast of Libya on Saturday, the maritime police said in a statement.

• Brother says accused Tunisian was forced to captain migrant boat at gunpoint

  The Tunisian man accused of piloting a migrant boat that sank off Libya, killing more than 700 people, is himself a migrant who was forced at gunpoint to captain the ship because of his experience as a fisherman, his brother said on Saturday.

• Migrant rescue mission must extend closer to Libya: Amnesty International

  European efforts to save the lives of migrants drowning in the Mediterranean must involve search and rescue operations near the shores of Libya, Amnesty International said on Saturday as hundreds more people arrived in Italy from North Africa.

• Prosecutors blame captain for causing deaths in migrant shipwreck

  Prosecutors blamed the Tunisian captain of a fishing boat for causing the deaths of hundreds of migrants locked below decks when his vessel capsized in the Mediterranean, in the weekend shipwreck that has shocked Europe.