According to figures from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), almost 1,100 migrants have been intercepted off the Libyan coast by the Coast Guard since Saturday 27 March. They are being sent back to internment camps in Tripoli where conditions are deplorable. Five people died during rescue operations on Tuesday and 77 were rescued, according to the IOM, which condemns the return of these migrants to a country in chaos.
“This is a consequence of an irresponsible migration policy,” tweeted Safa Msehli, an IOM spokesman in Geneva, after the deaths of five new migrants, including two women and three children, on Tuesday, March 30, outside Libya.
Faced with this new wave of wiretapping, the IOM reaffirmed that “arbitrary detention must end”. In Libya, thousands of migrants held in government centers have been subjected to all kinds of abuse.
According to the IOM, more than 235 migrants have died in the central Mediterranean and tried to cross into Europe since the beginning of the year. Not to mention the “invisible shipwrecks” where there are neither witnesses nor survivors.
An agreement signed between Libya and Italy in 2017 allows the Libyan Coast Guard, trained by the European Union, to intercept migrants while in Libyan territorial waters.
In February 2020, Amnesty International stated that 40,000 people, including thousands of minors, had been captured since the signing of the agreement and then returned to Libya where they were “subjected to unimaginable suffering”.
Alarm Phone, the helpline for people in need in the Mediterranean, condemns Info Migrants to the Libyan Coast Guard, which is: “the European tool for keeping people moving outside Europe and letting them die”.
Mohamad Hammouda, spokesman for the Libyan government, acknowledges that the new executive has not yet raised the issue of migrants, which he says are “a shared responsibility” with Europe.
