North Macedonia: Migrants allegedly held to ransom, abused

SKOPJE, North Macedonia (AP) — North Macedonia’s prosecutor’s office says it has filed criminal charges against three Pakistanis and a Macedonian national for allegedly holding a group of migrants prisoner and holding them to ransom.  The prosecutor’s office said the men were believed to have behaved in a “particularly degrading and cruel” manner to a group of 12 migrants, including two minors, from India, Afghanistan and Pakistan, whom they had detained for two weeks in October in a house in the country’s north, near the border with Serbia. Also Monday, police in Cyprus said they safely escorted to the coastal town of Larnaca a boat with 87 Syrian migrants that had left from the Turkish port of Mersin.