World
Lampedusa: Misinformation floods social media about surge of migrants
When more than 10,000 undocumented migrants landed on the shores of the Italian island of Lampedusa last week, social media became flooded with misinformation. Euronews debunked two viral and misleading clips.
In this context of heated discussions on how EU member states should handle illegal immigration, multiple misleading videos have been shared criticising the migrants arriving in Italy.
Since last week, authorities declared a state of emergency as the island’s population increased dramatically while NGOs scrambled to help new arrivals.
One video was shared hundreds of thousands of times on X, formerly Twitter.
It claims to show a violent clash between law enforcement and newly arrived migrants in Lampedusa.
“The police are powerless to control the situation. This is an invasion,” said one user.
“Migrants in Italy now attack the police. The small island of Lampedusa is about to be captured,” said another X account.
After conducting a reverse image search using some stills from this video, The Cube found it was filmed in 2021.
It wasn’t even filmed in Lampedusa but in Mondolfo, in the central Italian region of Marche.
According to localnews reports, a fight erupted between an Albanian man and a Senegalese man, which escalated into the former stabbing the Senegalese individual.
Two law enforcement officers were injured trying to break up the fight.
Another misleading video claims Lampedusa migrants are starting fights in Germany
The second viral video claims to show migrants starting fights after having arrived in the German city of Stuttgart from Lampedusa.
“Today Italy, tomorrow Germany, and then maybe it’s time for your country,” warned one Polish account.
“In Stuttgart, illegal immigrants from #Lampedusa are engaging in clashes with iron bars and stone-throwing. Thank you the EU for this,” wrote a French user.
A reverse image search reveals the scene was indeed filmed in Stuttgart last week.
However, the violent altercations started following an Eritrean cultural festival.
According tomultiple news outlets, the scuffle occurred between pro and anti-government Eritrean activists.
There is no indication or proof that the fight was caused by migrants who recently arrived from Lampedusa.
This is not the first time a fight between activists has erupted after an Eritrean festival.
In July, a clash at an Eritrean festival in the western German city of Giessen left 22 police officers injured.
In September, a fight between Eritrean government supporters and opponents in Tel Aviv led to violent confrontations in the streets.
More than 100 people, including several dozen police officers, were injured during the fighting.
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A Colombian army helicopter has crashed in a rural area of the country's north, killing 9 soldiers
An army helicopter carrying supplies to troops crashed in a rural area in northern Colombia on Monday, killing nine soldiers on board, the country’s armed forces said.
In a statement, the Colombian military said the helicopter was taking the supplies to the municipality of Santa Rosa del Sur, an area that has recently experienced fighting between the National Liberation Army guerrilla group and the drug trafficking group known as the Gulf Clan.
TENS OF THOUSANDS OF COLOMBIANS PROTEST AGAINST LEFTIST PRESIDENT’S AGENDA
The military statement described the helicopter crash as an accident.
“I regret the death of the nine passengers on board the army’s helicopter” Colombian president Gustavo Petro wrote on X on Monday. “It was supplying troops…that were conducting operations against the Gulf Clan.”
The military said the helicopter crashed around 1:50 pm local time. It was an MI-17 Russian-built chopper that is often used to carry troops and supplies.
Two officers were among the victims of the crash, which also included two sergeants and three privates. None of the passengers on the helicopter survived.
World
Strack-Zimmermann blasts von der Leyen's defence policy
Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, one of the lead candidates in the European elections, has issued a blistering verdict of Ursula von der Leyen’s first term in office.
Strack-Zimmermann, who hails from the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE), is part of a three-candidate team representing the liberal forces in the bloc-wide poll between 6 and 9 June. Currently a member of the Bundestag, where she chairs the Defence Committee, she is vying for a seat in the European Parliament.
In a wide-ranging interview with Euronews, the contender denounced the policies of Ursula von der Leyen, the sitting president of the European Commission, in the fields of defence, economy and fundamental rights. Von der Leyen is running for a second mandate and is widely considered the frontrunner.
“I’m absolutely disappointed,” Strack-Zimmermann said on Monday, speaking in Maastricht hours before a debate with all lead candidates.
The liberal assailed the incumbent for taking too long to put defence at the very top of the EU agenda, only doing so, she said, after Russian troops broke through the borders of Ukraine and unleashed the largest armed conflict in the continent since World War II.
The wait, she added, was particularly striking considering von der Leyen had previously served as defence minister under the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel.
“I have no idea why she didn’t talk about military security when she started to be the president of the Commission because she knows the topic, she has an idea of what happened,” she said, referring to the 2014 annexation of Crimea.
“I was surprised that didn’t say: ‘Come on, we have to do more in Europe,’ because she has the experience.”
When Russia’s invasion began in February 2022, von der Leyen’s executive was still dealing with the shockwaves sent by the COVID-19 pandemic and the roll-out of the recovery fund, built up by record-breaking amounts of joint borrowing and beefed up with stringent spending conditions to accelerate the green and digital transitions.
But in Strack-Zimmermann’s view, this does not cut it as an excuse for procrastination.
“I know the pandemic situation was terrible for everybody. But even then, you could see what (was happening) in Russia. And it was not this or that, it was both. I think if you are the head of the Commission, there is not one (single) topic,” she told Euronews.
“It’s not a very sexy topic talking about weapons, talking about war. It sounds nicer if you are talking about the Green Deal, it’s a softer topic.”
The failure to provide 1 million rounds of artillery shells by March 2024, as the bloc famously promised to Kyiv, underlines the overall fiasco, she added. “It’s a question of time. It’s a question (of) if you say we will deliver it, we have to do it.”
On the economic front, the contender warned environmental policies and excessive bureaucracy put a damper on growth, scared entrepreneurs away and killed “every moment to have ideas to stay in Europe as a company.”
Regarding the protection of fundamental rights, Strack-Zimmermann said it was “unbelievable” that the Commission had unfrozen €10.2 billion in cohesion funds for Hungary one day before a crucial summit that Viktor Orbán had threatened to blow up.
Brussels argued the release was inevitable after Budapest approved a reform to address long-standing concerns about judicial independence. But the overhaul was deemed insufficient by the European Parliament, which filed a lawsuit against the Commission.
“Everybody was very irritated,” Strack-Zimmermann said. “She’s responsible for it. And you could see that the Parliament is not amused about this situation.”
Despite her harsh assessment, the liberal admitted that being a Commission president was a “hard job.”
This interview is part of an ongoing series with all the Spitzenkandidaten. The full interview with Strack-Zimmermann will air on Euronews over the weekend.
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