News Highlights: UN Sanctions on Eritrea lifted, Eritreans escaped and recaptured in Libya, Valetta Migration Plan discussed in Ethiopia

In this week’s news highlights: UN Security Council sanctions on Eritrea lifted; IOM says most Horn of Africa migrants move within region; leaders of Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea meet; abuses and accidents on the refugee route to Sudan; Eritrean refugees escape from Libyan detention camp and are recaptured; Netherlands cannot ban Eritrean diaspora tax outright: report; migration meeting with European and African officials in Ethiopia; Italy receives 51 refugees via resettlement; and Czech Republic another EU country that will not sign UN Migration Compact.

News Highlights: Eritrea-Ethiopia relations 20 years after border war, UNSC renews sanctions South Sudan, new IOM data

In this week’s news highlights: Time to renew Ethiopian-Eritrean relations; UN Security Council extends sanctions to South Sudan; US reviews assistance programs in South Sudan; Ethiopians face hardships on the way to Saudi Arabia; New IOM reports migrants arrivals to Europe for 2018; A Nigerian man’s story: trying to reach Europe; internal news: how will the new EU data regulations affect the news highlights list?

EP DEVE Committee hosts AU: Cooperation progress going well but African Union stresses its funding gaps

On the eve of the negotiations for a Post-Cotonou Agreement, which will manage the relations between the European Union (EU) and the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group of states after the Cotonou agreement expires in 2020, discussions between the stakeholders areintensifying. On 24 April 2018 the Development Committee (DEVE) of the European Parliament (EP) held a joint sitting with the Delegation to the ACPGroup of Statesto discuss the reform of the African Union.Their progress for reforming the African Union was described as good, however the speakers focused on theirfunding gaps, and asked for the assistance of the EU as their “major partner”.