A French submarine that went missing with all hands on board over 50 years ago has finally been found, officials in Toulon confirmed on Monday, July 22.

Since 2014, more than 1.5 million irregular migrants (IM) have crossed the Mediterranean to Europe from North Africa, by means of small boats, thereby earning migration racketeers a great deal of money. Around 18,000 IMs have probably died making the trip, mainly due to the foundering of the fragile and overcrowded vessels used.

Italy has gifted the Libyan Navy the patrol boat Fezzan as part of the two countries’ joint cooperation to combat illegal immigration and human trafficking.

The largest freight ferry to be deployed in the Mediterranean, Alf Pollack, has been launched and named at Flensburger Schiffbau-Gesellschaft in Germany.

Danish shipping and logistics group DFDS will acquire 98.8 per cent of leading Turkish freight operator UN Ro-Ro from Turkish private equity firms Actera Group and Esas Holdings in a €950 million (US$1.17 billion) deal.

The upgraded Forme 10 dry dock at the Port of Marseille will open on October 30. 

French shipyard Alumarine has delivered a passenger catamaran that will operate on Mediterranean waters.

Some 500,000 irregular migrants (IM) have reached Europe by sea, mainly by way of Libya, in the past two years, while more than 6,000 people are estimated to have perished in the attempt. Inevitably, resistance in European countries to this human wave continues to grow, and a number of nations are now refusing to accept any more IRs for resettlement.

The irregular migrant (IM) crisis in the Mediterranean, has seen, so far this year, the rescue of some 110,000 IMs, mainly from large, but flimsy, racketeer-supplied, Chinese-made RIBs, while more than 2,000 have probably perished in the attempt. Most of the IMs, who originate from a variety of nations, begin the sea phase of their journey on the Libyan coast.

Irregular migrants (IM) have been crossing the Mediterranean Sea towards Europe in significant numbers since 2011. By the end of 2016 some 630,000 IMs had made the journey, with an estimated 13,000 dying in the attempt.

The Italian Coast Guard initially took most of the strain of dealing with the efflux, but the escalation of numbers attempting the crossing, and financial concerns, led, from 2014, to the direct involvement of maritime forces of other European nations.