“I Sea” billed itself as an app that would “empower the billions of us with smart devices” to do something about the thousands of migrants that have already drowned in the Mediterranean. For the last few days, Mashable, Reuters, Wired and others chirpily blogged about it, and why not? It sounded so impressive! Wouldn’t you want to “spend your lunch break searching for migrants who might be in need of help”? The app’s slick promo video promised to use “the power of crowdsourcing to help monitor the vast sea, and make the impossible possible.” Sorry, but “I See” did not make the impossible possible, because vile PR stunts rarely do.

On Wednesday, the UN Refugee Agency announced that it had spoken to survivors of a maritime disaster reported earlier this week, in which as many as 500 refugees and migrants are rumored to have drowned in the Mediterranean Sea, somewhere between Libya and Italy.

Europe is currently struggling to manage its biggest wave of refugees since WWII. Today, a top official tells economic migrants: do not fucking come here.

On Monday, the Guardian reports, French police and migrants clashed as authorities continued to demolish sections of the refugee camp in the port town of Calais known as “the Jungle.” Buildings housing about 200 people were dismantled, and some makeshift shelters caught fire.

A fire—the result of suspected arson—tore through a former hotel in eastern Germany on Sunday, causing possibly irreparable damage, the Associated Press reports. Police said onlookers cheered as the building, which was in the midst of being converted to a home for refugees, burned.

Citing the Agence France-Presse and Dogan news agencies, the Guardian reports that Turkish police have discovered a factory producing fake lifejackets filled with non-buoyant materials. Earlier this week, the bodies of 34 refugees washed ashore in Ayvalık and Dikili.

On New Year’s Eve, in Cologne, Germany, hundreds of young men took part in what appeared to be an organized campaign of sexual harassment against about 90 women around the Cologne Cathedral. According to Reuters, on Tuesday, authorities described the events as “a new dimension in crime.”

Last weekend, at least 121 migrants who lost their asylum cases were arrested and marked for deportation—effectively sending some to their deaths.

Since January 2014, as many as 83 undocumented immigrants, having fled violence in their homes countries (only to be deported by the United States), have been murdered upon their return to El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. A Guardian investigation identified three separate Honduran men killed in their hometowns.

All this talk of a wall between the U.S. and Mexico has tainted the discussion about immigration in the U.S. — so much so that it’s made us forget about some pretty simple facts.

On Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reports, Austria said that it plans to build a fence along part of its border with Slovenia, in an attempt to slow the arrival of migrants and refugees.

An Afghan man trying to make his way from Turkey into Bulgaria near the southeastern Bulgarian town of Sredets was shot and killed late on Thursday, Agence France-Presse reports.

As of this week, there are approximately 60 million people that have been displaced by conflict and mistreatment, a number that is far higher than that of a decade ago.

On Sunday, Pope Francis, addressing thousands in St. Peter’s Square, asked every European parish, religious community, monastery, and sanctuary to shelter refugees. It is not enough to say, “Have courage, hang in there,” the pope said.

Less than a day after a truck containing 71 decomposing bodies was found outside Vienna, police stopped a small van carrying 26 refugees in northern Austria, including three small children who were hospitalized with severe dehydration, the New York Times reports.

On Saturday, thousands of migrants rushed past baton-wielding Macedonian police, who fired stun grenades into the crowds. Many hundreds remained on the Greek side of the border.

On Saturday, the Italian navy rescued some 320 migrants from an overcrowded boat in the Mediterranean Sea north of Libya. At least 40 other migrants died in the boat’s hold, apparently killed by fuel fumes, the Associated Press reports.

The Italian Coast Guard, aided by commercial vessels, rescued at least 16 boats of migrants off the coast of Libya on Sunday, the Associated Press reports. Ten bodies were recovered in the course of three different rescue operations.

Authorities believe an estimated 300 migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean in dinghies were "swallowed by the waves" leaving only a handful of survivors off the Italian coast.

A boat carrying 100 migrants capsized off the coast near Tripoli in Libya, coast guard officials said on Sunday. Officials have not confirmed the number of deaths but at least 100 people were on board. This is the second boat to capsize in the same area in a week, the Associated Press reports.