Joanna Kakissis

Stuck on a stalled motorized inflatable raft in the open sea, 15-year-old Tsedal began to panic.

She and the other passengers, more than 60 migrants from the African countries of Eritrea and Sudan, had set off from neighboring Libya, where their lives had become unbearable. They were trying to cross more than 100 miles of the Mediterranean Sea to reach Europe.

Repeated distress calls brought no help. The passengers were suffering from dehydration and sunstroke. Two babies on board cried with such anguish that Tsedal could feel their wails deep in her chest.

The European Union began a mass vaccination campaign on Sunday to eventually inoculate some 450 million people in 27 member-states against COVID-19.

Most European leaders are congratulating Joe Biden on Saturday for winning the U.S. presidency. Not Janez Jansa, prime minister of Slovenia, the alpine country in Eastern Europe where Melania Trump was born and raised.

Kosovo President Hashim Thaci, who fought in his country's 1998-1999 war for independence from Serbia, has abruptly resigned after a Hague-based special court confirmed that he's been indicted on war crimes charges.

Speaking at a news conference in the Kosovo capital, Pristina, Thaci said he was stepping down "to protect the integrity of the state."

"I resign as of today," he told reporters on Thursday, urging calm and "political and civic unity."

A Greek court has sentenced Nikos Michaloliakos, the leader of the far right anti-immigrant Golden Dawn party, to 13 years in prison. Michaloliakos and others from Golden Dawn were found guilty last week of being part of a criminal organization that ordered or encouraged violence.

Other leaders received sentences ranging from five to 13 years on Wednesday. The court will decide soon if any of the sentences will be suspended.

The pastel-painted taverns, cafes and hotels that line the small port in the remote Greek island of Kastellorizo are usually bustling this time of year with tourists, including hundreds of day-trippers from Turkey — which is just a 10-minute speedboat ride away.

This year, the port is quiet, and not just because of the coronavirus pandemic.

This stunning, craggy isle surrounded by the deep-blue Aegean Sea has become a pawn in a dispute between Greece and Turkey — NATO allies and longtime frenemies — over maritime borders and offshore gas and oil exploration rights.

Ra'ed Alabed films his tent's smoldering remains in what he called the "hell camp" on the Greek island of Lesbos.

"This was my home," says the 45-year-old Syrian refugee in a video he shared with NPR, pointing to a blackened cooking pot and a thicket of charred olive-tree branches. "My home in the most horrible place."

Multiple fires this week destroyed the tents of more than 12,000 refugees living in Europe's largest refugee camp, called Moria after a nearby village. For years, the camp has symbolized the European Union's failure to manage migration in a humane way.

Peggy Bouva was at home in the Dutch port city of Rotterdam a couple of years ago when she got a call that fascinated her.

The woman on the phone, Maartje Duin, calling from Amsterdam, said she wanted to talk about slavery. Duin told Bouva that she had done some research into her own family history and found their families shared a connection: One of Duin's ancestors had co-owned a plantation in South America where Bouva's ancestors had been enslaved.

Rezan al-Ibrahim understands separation. A Web developer who fled the war in Syria and now has asylum in the Netherlands, he's in a long-distance marriage with his wife, Aysha Shedbalkar, an Indian American math teacher, because of the Trump administration's ban on Syrians.

"She had taken this year off work to stay with me in Amsterdam," he says. "Then the pandemic hit."

Greece has reopened its airports to international travelers in the hopes of salvaging this year's tourism season and easing an anticipated recession caused by coronavirus lockdowns.

Tourists arriving from countries with high infection rates must take a test for the coronavirus and be quarantined for up to two weeks. Travelers from countries with low infection rates will be subject to random testing but will avoid quarantine.

Albin Kurti became prime minister of Kosovo in February by promising jobs and justice. A former activist who was often arrested at anti-corruption protests and once set off tear gas in parliament, he is described by friends and foes alike as a cross between Che Guevara and Bernie Sanders.

But there's one view he shares with all politicians in Kosovo: He loves the United States.

"I always viewed the United States of America as the greatest ally," Kurti, 45, tells NPR, "an indispensable partner for us in war and in peace, for justice and development and democracy."

Hungary's government says it will end a coronavirus-related state of emergency on June 20, revoking a much-criticized law that handed sweeping powers to Prime Minister Viktor Orban in March.

Each year, the Eurovision Song Contest unites 180 million viewers in more than 40 countries for an electric-falsetto night of glitter, glam and hard-rock hallelujah.

European Parliament lawmakers demanded Thursday that European Union leaders punish Hungary's government for using the COVID-19 pandemic to grab power through a controversial emergency law.

Democracy is weakening across Central and Eastern Europe as well as Eurasia amid the rise of Chinese and Russian influence, according to a new report by Freedom House, a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C.

The annual report — Nations in Transit 2020, Dropping the Democratic Facade — covers 29 countries from Central Europe to Central Asia and says there are now fewer democracies in the area than at any point in the past 25 years.

Federico Manni first noticed something was wrong with his family's olive trees about six years ago.

It was summer, the cicadas were singing, and Manni and his father, Enzo, were weaving through their olive groves in Puglia, the southern region forming the "heel" of Italy's boot.

They noticed some trees looked burnt.

"Dead branches, brown leaves," Manni says. "Terrible, really terrible."

They pruned and washed the trees but it didn't help. Soon more trees shriveled. Today nearly all are dead.

The International Organization for Migration said Tuesday that it was responding to a new COVID-19 outbreak at a third migrant shelter in Greece.

At least 150 people tested positive for COVID-19 at a hotel that's been converted into a migrant shelter in the town of Kranidi, in southern Greece. They include 148 asylum seekers, an aid worker and a hotel employee.

Updated at 12:34 p.m. ET

Orthodox Christians — 300 million worldwide — are observing Easter, their biggest holiday, this weekend.

The Roma are Europe's largest ethnic minority — and among the most marginalized European citizens, excluded from society for decades. With the coronavirus pandemic, now they're facing a potential humanitarian disaster.

Many of the estimated 12 million Roma in Europe live in shantytowns without access to water, electricity or sanitation — not to mention with sometimes limited access to doctors.

The coronavirus pandemic has all but shuttered global tourism. As quarantines and social distancing continue in countries around the world for the foreseeable future, airlines are warning of bankruptcy, hotels are closed, cruise ships are docked and tour buses are idle.

Greece is among some countries that have begun offering interactive websites to keep their tourism brands afloat — "until we can all be together in person again," Dimitris Fragakis, secretary-general of the Greek National Tourism Organization, said in a statement on Thursday.

Since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, medical personnel, human rights groups and others have warned of catastrophe if COVID-19 spreads to the roughly 60,000 refugees living in often-squalid camps in Greece.

Now the virus has arrived. This week, at least 20 refugees living in the Ritsona camp, near Athens, have tested positive for COVID-19. The camp is now on lockdown for the next two weeks.

"No one can go in or out" except for essential personnel like healthcare workers, Migration Minister Notis Mitarakis told Greece's SKAI radio on Thursday.

The Central Asian country of Turkmenistan claims it has no coronavirus cases.

The nationalist government in Hungary passed a law Monday granting sweeping emergency powers that Prime Minister Viktor Orban says are necessary to fight the coronavirus pandemic.

Those powers include sidelining parliament and giving Orban the power to rule by decree indefinitely. The law would punish those who spread false information about the pandemic with up to five years in prison.

"Changing our lives is now unavoidable," Orban told lawmakers last week. "Everyone has to leave their comfort zone. This law gives the government the power and means to defend Hungary."

Spring is usually the busiest time of year at the Aalsmeer Flower Auction in the Netherlands, the world's blossom trade capital.

There are chrysanthemums for Easter. Roses for Mother's Day. Tulips in full bloom for everyone.

Now most of these flowers are being composted. The coronavirus has grounded deliveries and shipments. And now the Dutch government has banned public gatherings of any size until June. People are hardly buying flowers right now.