Archive for the ‘Libya’ Category

Cargo shipping line between Tunisia and Libya to be launched second week of April | – Libya Herald

By Sami Zaptia.

London, 7 April 2020:

A cargo shipping line between Tunisia and Libya is to be launched in the second week of April, Tunisias Ministry of Transport and Logistics revealed. The service is for Tunisian goods destined for Libya but currently stalled due to the Coronavirus (Covid-19) curfews and border closures in both countries.

The Ministry called for coordination with the Sfax port administration to see practical procedures to secure the transfer of their exports to Libya, after it coordinated between the maritime carriers working on Tunisian ports and Tunisian exporters interested in the Libyan market, to provide cargo shipping services to ensure the flow of cargo between Tunisia and Libya.

The Ministry said in a statement on Monday that an agreement was reached with one of the maritime carriers to organize weekly service to transport Tunisian exports, by container ship, between the port of Sfax and the port of Tripoli.

The first trip will be scheduled during the second week of April, starting from the port of Sfax, with the maritime carrier ready to operate a regular sea line between the two ports, subject to sufficient volume of cargo.

The Ministry added that the move comes as part of supporting Tunisian exporters and urging them to seek new markets, facilitate international transfers and develop trade relations between Tunisia and Libya, following measures taken at border crossings to counter the spread of the CORONA virus.

Read the rest here:
Cargo shipping line between Tunisia and Libya to be launched second week of April | - Libya Herald

Coronavirus, Conflict Threaten Thousands of Refugees, Migrants Detained in Libya – VOA News

GENEVA - The U.N. refugee agency warns thousands of refugees and migrants detained in sub-standard facilities in Libya are threatened by COVID-19 and the ongoing conflict in the country, and should be released.

The warning comes as a military offensive launched by renegade commander Khalifa Haftar in the Libyan capital Tripoli a year ago continues unabated despite the threats posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The U.N. refugee agency reports more than 300 civilians have been killed and 150,000 others displaced by the fighting.

In addition to this threat, the UNHCR says Libyan authorities have confirmed 10 cases of COVID-19 and one death.

UNHCR spokesman Babar Balloch says the countrys weakened health services are unable to adequately respond to this pandemic.

The ongoing conflict has severely impacted the countrys health system and medical services, which have limited financial resources and face shortages of basic equipment and medicines. Many hospitals or health facilities, located in the areas close to the conflict, have also been damaged or closed, he said.

Balloch said daily life is becoming increasingly difficult for people across conflict-torn Libya. He said they have difficulty accessing basic goods and services, and finding work. He said house rentals, food and fuel prices are soaring, making them unaffordable for many. But he noted those most at risk in this unstable, war-torn society are the thousands of asylum seekers and refugees held in detention. He says the UNHCR and other agencies are calling for their orderly release.

Asylum seekers and refugees, held in detention because they do not have legal documentation, are particularly vulnerable and exposed, given often poor sanitation facilities, limited health services and overcrowded conditions. Many detention centers are also located in areas close to the fighting frontlines, he said.

Balloch said the UNHCR continues to provide protection and assistance to refugees, asylum seekers, forcibly displaced Libyans and returnees. But he added deteriorating conditions and lack of security in the country are hampering the delivery of aid to those in need.

View original post here:
Coronavirus, Conflict Threaten Thousands of Refugees, Migrants Detained in Libya - VOA News

Tripoli-based HoR accuses EU of enabling Haftar in Libya – The Libya Observer

The House of Representatives (HoR) in Tripoli has accused the European Union (EU) of working to enable Khalifa Haftar in Libya by dubious ways, commenting on the new naval mission in the Mediterranean, Operation IRINI.

In a statement on Wednesday, the HoR said the mission's monitoring focus on the arms embargo in the sea only, disregarding land and air borders, which it said were main routes for Haftar's military backup, means it's undermining the legitimate Government of National Accord in the country.

"The EU has no authority on any other country outside the union's geography. Therefore, the IRINI decision lacks many legal facets as it intentionally equalizes between the legitimate government and the renegade. The EU's decision violates UN Charter that says in Article No.15 of Chapter 7 that rule legitimate authorities of a state have the right to defend themselves and protect the state against any kinds of aggression." The HoR explained.

The HoR further added that the EU's decision encroaches on Libya's sovereignty and an intervention in the policy making of the country.

On Tuesday, the in the Mediterranean to monitor the implementation of the arms embargo on Libya.

Operation IRINI will have as its core task the implementation of the UN arms embargo through the use of aerial, satellite and maritime assets, according to the EU's statement on Tuesday.

See the original post here:
Tripoli-based HoR accuses EU of enabling Haftar in Libya - The Libya Observer

Q&A with a photojournalist from CT who once was kidnapped in Libya – CT Insider

This article originally appeared in Connecticut Magazine. You can subscribe here, or find the current issue on sale here. Sign up for the newsletter to get the latest and greatest content from Connecticut Magazine delivered right to your inbox. On Facebook and Instagram @connecticutmagazine and Twitter @connecticutmag.

Whether in a war zone or refugee camp, Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Lynsey Addario has spent her career on the front line armed with little more than a lens. While covering the Arab Spring uprising in Libya in 2011, Addario and her colleagues were kidnapped and beaten for days and their driver was killed. Her 2015 memoir, Its What I Do , is a New York Times bestseller, and she put out a coffee table book of her photographs in 2018 titled Of Love & War. A native of Westport, Addario currently lives in London with her husband and two children.

What was your childhood like in Westport?

Really great, actually. Growing up in Westport was incredible. Its such a child-friendly town and we lived close to Coleytown Elementary School; thats where I went to elementary. So wed either take a bus or walk to school. I had three older sisters. We had a lot of fun. It was a great childhood.

Why Wisconsin for college?

I wanted to get off the East Coast. And I was interested in going to a big school.

Why did you want to get off the East Coast?

Because I grew up there. My philosophy has always been the more I travel, the more I explore, the more well-rounded person I can become.

How did the photography thing start for you?

My dad, hes a hairdresser, and he had a client who gave him a Nikon. He gave that to me. From the time I was about 12 or 13 I started experimenting with that camera and got some books on how to photograph. I started photographing at home, inanimate objects. I would go to the cemetery, and go to places where I wasnt intimidated by people.

You said you wanted to leave the East Coast, but traveling the world, was that something you knew you wanted to do?

When I was younger it was just about exploring new things and new cultures and new countries. Then, the more I did this job and the more I started to find my footing as a young photographer, it became about exploring places that were taboo or places that were off limits and trying to understand. Are these places the bad place? Are these places the way that we perceive them from the outside or are these places similar to our own country, but we just dont have a good political relationship with them or we only have one side of a picture?

After 9/11 you went to Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq when most Americans wouldnt dream of doing something like that.

Well, yeah. I [also] went before 9/11. I made three trips to Afghanistan before 9/11. I had been reading about the situation for women under the Taliban, and the situation of life under the Taliban. I was curious, frankly. What is it really like? Is this a situation where were imposing our views on what a culture should be like from the outside or is it really that grim? And how do the local people feel, how do Afghans feel? I was able to get a few visas from the Taliban and went.

Thats amazing, the idea of getting visas from the Taliban.

It was a very difficult process, not only because I was American but because I was a single woman and I was traveling there alone. They had to provide me what is locally called a mahram, which means almost like a male escort, to walk around with me because women cant just walk around the streets alone, or they couldnt at that time in Afghanistan.

That didnt feel like a trap? An American woman alone in Afghanistan, and the Taliban knows where youre going to be at all times. That seems incomprehensible.

At the end of the day its all in the way you approach something. In order to do the work I do I have to inherently trust people. I have to believe in the best in people because otherwise fear would take over my life and I would just be scared all the time. I really have to believe in the places Im going and be very open and transparent and honest about what my goals are and what I plan on doing there. And Ive been very lucky. Yeah, I have been kidnapped. I have been in ambushes. Ive been through a lot, but ultimately Im still alive.

I imagine when you got kidnapped in Libya that was your worst fear come to life.

For any photographer covering an uprising, there is always the fear that we might get shot, or something might happen or we would get kidnapped. When it happened, at that time I felt like it was a stupid judgment call. It was a bad judgment call on our parts because we stayed too long covering the front line. We could have avoided being kidnapped. There were many journalists who left right before us and we waited. That obviously caused us, and our families, an extraordinary amount of pain. But our driver was killed. Thats something that we can never get back. His family, thats an extraordinary loss that we all bear the responsibility for.

How long were you held captive?

A week. It was a week.

Longest week ever.

Yeah. Yeah it was. [Laughs] It was pretty miserable.

Another thing thats incomprehensible.

You just kinda shut down. I have no power, no control, no telephone and no shoes. You just shut down emotionally.

View original post here:
Q&A with a photojournalist from CT who once was kidnapped in Libya - CT Insider

Revealed: the great European refugee scandal | World news – The Guardian

As night fell on 26 March 2019, two small boats made their way north across the Mediterranean. The rubber crafts were flimsy; it would be nearly impossible for those onboard to make it to Europe without help. From the north, a twin-propeller aeroplane from the European Union naval force approached. From the south, the coastguard from the country they had just fled, Libya, was coming.

The aircraft arrived first but there would be no rescue from Europe. Instead the flight, callsign Seagull 75, radioed the Libyans telling them where to find the boats. But Libyas would-be interceptors would need more than just the coordinates. OK sir, my radar is not good, is not good, if you stay [over the boat] I will follow you, said the coastguard, according to recordings of VHF marine radio picked up by a nearby ship.

Sorry your browser does not support audio - but you can download here and listen https://audio.guim.co.uk/2020/03/11-60375-Clip2.mp3

Seagull 75 circled overhead. The flight crew was part of Operation Sophia, an EU naval mission that has patrolled the south-central Mediterranean since 2015. After participating in thousands of rescues in its first four years, Sophia withdrew its sea vessels from March 2019, leaving only aircraft in the rescue zone. It came to be known as the naval mission without any ships.

We have approximately five minutes left on station, the crew on Seagull 75 told the Libyans. We will go overhead the vessel, the rubber boat, and we will light our landing lights. The Sophia flight and the Libyan coastguard ship were searching for each other in the dark. We dont have your visual, keep an eye out for a light, said the flight crew. The Libyans asked for more information. Stand by, Im just updating your position. Stand by, the flight crew replied.

Sorry your browser does not support audio - but you can download here and listen https://audio.guim.co.uk/2020/03/11-60378-Clip3.mp3

Turn left about 10 degrees. He is approximately three nautical miles off your nose, replied Operation Sophia after a minute. The flight was out of fuel and about to head back to base. Libyan national coastguard, we will contact you through FHQ, over, said the flight crew, referring to the tactical base from which Operation Sophia is managed.

The confusion at sea that night was not an isolated incident but an illustration of the painstaking lengths to which Europe has gone to ensure migrants do not reach the continent. While the level of violence at Greeces border with Turkey has shocked many Europeans, Europes retreat from refugee rights did not begin last week. Greeces decision to seal its borders and deny access to asylum is only the most visible escalation of an assault on peoples right to seek protection.

The groundwork for this was laid in the central Mediterranean, where the EU and Italy created a proxy force to do what they could not do themselves without openly violating international laws: intercept unwanted migrants and return them to Libya.

The strategy has relied on maintaining deniability of responsibility for Libyan coastguard operations. But the connivance revealed in the audio recordings is supported by previously unpublished letters between high-level EU mandarins, confirmed by inside sources and laid bare in emails from the Libyan coastguard, all obtained by the Guardian. Taken together, this evidence threatens to unravel a conspiracy in the Mediterranean that flouts international law in the name of migration control.

The Mediterranean is the theatre where tensions between Europes ideas of human rights do battle with continental politicians anxiety about African migration. Until 2009, Libya was a safe country of return because countries such as Italy said it was. Italian vessels would intercept migrants and persuade them to clamber off their boats with promises of passage to Italy, and then put them in handcuffs and sail them to Tripoli.

Italy shipped close to 900 people back to Libya in 2009. Among those returnees were 11 Eritreans and Somalis who complained to the European court of human rights. The courts ruling in 2012 said Italy was guilty of refoulement and had violated the mens right to claim asylum and not to be returned to an unsafe port. In rejecting Italys arguments, one of the judges pointed out that refugees have the right to have rights.

This ruling, named the Hirsi ruling after one of the returnees, means any refoulement operation, even one carried out by a proxy force, would be vulnerable to international legal scrutiny if an EU state could be shown to be controlling and directing these operations. Europe had to find allies in Libya who were capable of intercepting migrants on the high seas without overt direction from the Europeans.

The project of building a proxy took off in the summer of 2017. At that time Libya, in the middle of a civil war, had no centralised coastguard and no capacity to manage its own search and rescue area. From the outset it was a joint project between Rome and Brussels: Italy provided ships while the EU trained and paid the new coastguards, often recruiting from among militias and smugglers.

To bolster the legitimacy of the new coastguard, paperwork needed to be lodged with the International Maritime Organization declaring that Libya now managed its own search and rescue zone. Court documents from a case in Catania, Sicily, would later show that one of the first telephone numbers listed for the coastguard was an Italian number.

But European money and material would not be enough to create an effective interception force. The former militiamen and smugglers who were now in coastguard uniforms struggled to reduce crossings. According to leaked internal documents from Operation Sophia from 2018, after more than a year of training and financial support the Libyan coastguard was still unable to control its own search and rescue area. To stop more crossings to Europe, they were going to need even more help.

From 2017 the EU began extending surveillance flights over the zone. Two years later, flights by the EU border agency Frontex almost doubled the size of the EU aerial mission. Under the law of the sea its pilots were bound to contact whichever ship was best placed to assist any boats in distress. But as the Libyans began asserting their presence in the Mediterranean, European flights and their coordinators started giving preference to ships that would take those they rescued southwards, despite the fact that European courts, the UNs refugee and migration agencies all agree Libya is not a safe country.

Potential legal consequences are now on the horizon. There are four submissions before international courts and two in the Italian system, accusing Italy, the EU or both of funding and directing the Libyan coastguard.

Italy bypassed Hirsi with an artificial edifice of Libyan power, but [an international court] ruling would show that they cant use this to evade responsibility, said Itamar Mann, an Israeli lawyer who is leading litigation efforts against the EU and Italy.

The most recent of these is a complaint to the European court of auditors, the EUs financial watchdog. The complaint accuses the EU of breaking its own laws by funnelling 90m earmarked for poverty reduction to the Libyan coastguard.

Mann alleges that while the Libyans are carrying out the interceptions, in the background it is the EU pulling the strings. The EU is using Italy in the same way that Italy is using Libya, to evade responsibility. The main culprit is in Brussels.

-----------

As Seagull 75 left the scene of the rescue last March, the Libyan coastguard radioed back to Operation Sophia to confirm the coordinates. Three four zero three north, zero one four three one, said the coastguard. Thats correct, the crew of Seagull 75 replied. The Libyans were pursuing the migrant boats to the northern extreme of Libyas search and rescue zone.

The coastguard vessel still could not find the first rubber boat. The second boat was being followed by another Sophia plane, a Spanish aircraft with the callsign Cotos, but it too was running low on fuel. It was becoming increasingly clear that only one of the boats would be rescued that night.

This is Europe is a new stream of Guardian journalism that investigates the big challenges that transcend national boundaries, and seeks out the solutions that could benefit us all. These are testing times, and crises are not limited by national borders. But then neither are we.

Minutes later another European helicopter made radio contact. The Libyan response came back, fast and garbled. Libyan national coastguard, Libyan national coastguard, can you please speak slowly, said the helicopter crew. Do you have visual with the rubber boat?

The Libyans found the first rubber boat and returned all those onboard to Libya. The Spanish flight trailed the second migrant boat until it ran short on fuel and departed. EU officials would later maintain that those onboard the second boat were rescued by a private oil tanker. However, multiple witnesses who were onboard that tanker say no such rescue occurred. VHF radio recordings from that night corroborate this account.

The IMOs search and rescue zones were not designed to exclude potential rescuers. But rescue carries with it the legal responsibility to disembark in a place of safety. After 2012, with Libya stripped of its status as a safe port and the political costs of rescuing migrants rising, European leaders had to find another way to control the Mediterranean.

By early 2019 at EU headquarters in Brussels and at Frontex, Europes coastal and border guard agency, senior officials were aware that the scale of their involvement with the Libyans risked making them legally responsible for the fate of returned migrants. A month before the Seagull 75 incident, Fabrice Leggeri, the head of Frontex, wrote to Paraskevi Michou, the highest-ranked migration official in the EU, outlining the problem.

Direct exchanges of operational information with the MRCC [Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre] Libya about search and rescue cases may trigger interventions of the Libyan coastguard, wrote Leggeri. The development of a Libyan coastguard is funded as you know by the European Union. Nevertheless, the commission and in general institutions may face questions of a political nature as a consequence of the SAR-related operational exchanges of information.

Couched in official jargon, Europes top border official appeared to be asking the EUs ranking migration official whether they were crossing the line.

The response from Michou a month later sought to reassure him that, legally, they were in the clear. Still, she noted: [Many] of the recent sightings of migrants in the Libyan SRR [rescue zone] have been provided by aerial assets of [Operation Sophia] and were notified directly to the Libyan RCC responsible for its own region.

In other words, it was becoming apparent that EU air assets costing more than 35m in 2019 just for Frontex aircraft had become the eyes and ears of a Libyan interception force.

In private, some officials from the European agencies most directly involved were uncomfortable with the level of cooperation. An EU border official, who asked not to be identified, told the Guardian there was no difference between returning someone to an unsafe country or paying someone else to return them.

In the same period that the Libyan coastguard has been built up operationally and given the facade of legitimacy, private rescue boats run by European charities have faced a sustained campaign of harassment with port closures, arrests and the impounding of ships.

The Libyan coastguard is not able to locate and track migrant boats itself. In order to do interceptions, they need to be fed from aerial surveillance, said Tamino Bhm, the head of mission for the German NGO Sea Watch. Nearly no effective interceptions would take place without an EU air force assisting them.

Bhm, whose NGO flies its own small surveillance plane through the same skies as Sophia, lists case after case where EU flights relayed data on boats in distress to the Libyan coastguard and to private Libya-bound ships. He notes that NGO vessels and European ships were not called on to rescue as often a possible violation of international maritime law.

European actors are not only complicit with but directly responsible for pushbacks to Libya, Bhm added.

The UN refugee agencys special envoy for the central Mediterranean, Vincent Cochetel, said nobody in the international community could pretend they did not understand how dangerous Libya had become.

Under these circumstances, he said, no asset of a third country naval, aerial or intelligence should be used to facilitate return from international waters to Libya.

The main connection between European air surveillance and Libyan interceptions at sea is still the rescue coordination centre in Rome. According to two German legal professors, Anuscheh Farahat and Nora Markard, this makes Italy responsible for internationally wrongful acts, namely where it violates its obligations under the international law of the sea to make sure a rescue operation leads to a delivery to a place of safety.

Mario Giro was Italys deputy foreign minister for two years while the strategy to support the Libyan coastguard was first being developed. Giro said he believed Italian and European leaders, and in particular Italys then interior minister, Marco Minitti, were so focused on stopping the flow of people from Libya that they cut important corners. Italian and European willingness to deal directly with militia members and smugglers was a mistake, full stop, Giro said.

At that time it was very clear that everybody in Italy and in Europe on the right and on the left was obsessed with the question of migrants. And everybody wanted a quick, immediate solution in the name of trying to control the public opinion.

-----------

Until now the EU and Italy have skirted the line between financing and supporting the Libyan coastguard and taking control of, and therefore responsibility for, its operations. Even when the mask has slipped, as it did when the telephone number listed for Libyas new rescue centre was listed as an Italian number, the denial of ultimate responsibility is maintained.

Our personnel are not embedded onboard of Libyan coastguard assets and Eunavfor Med [European Naval Force Mediterranean] personnel are not part of the Libyan coastguard and navys decision-making process, said Peter Stano, a spokesperson for the European External Action Service, the EUs diplomatic corps. Nor is EUnavfor Med entitled to exercise any control and authority over Libyan coastguard and navys units or personnel.

Stano denied any direct coordination of the Libyan coastguard. [EU] air assets do not exercise any coordination of Libyan vessels during rescue operations. There is no reconnaissance programme, he said.

However, an email sent by a Libyan coastguard commodore to Alarm Phone, a volunteer monitoring group, in August 2019, obtained by the Guardian, states that EU air assets directly pass information to them. Please be informed that yesterday PV LNCG FEZZAN has conducted nr. 2 S.A.R. events, two rubber boat in dangerous distress (sinking) with about 30 and 50 people on board, North-West of Tripoli (around 70 NM), in PSN 3350N-01239E and 3348N-01218E correlated to reports by EUNAVFORMED air asset D0102 and D0105, the email said.

Despite the denials, a reckoning appears closer as an array of international legal actions scrutinise every aspect of this cooperation. What emerges, lawyers claim, is a conspiracy to bypass international law and evade responsibility for effectively blocking the Mediterranean.

A senior EU official close to Libya policy at the time described the Mediterranean strategy as a political timebomb.

The EU has taken a major reputational risk, said the official. We put our fate in the hands of crooks, the consequences of which are now arriving.

In late 2017, decision-makers in Brussels were split between a group of hardliners who wanted Europes migration control outsourced to Libya and a reduction in sea crossings at all costs, and others who argued that Sophia and the NGO ships should be allowed to continue rescue operations. The hardliners won out. Now, more than two years later, the presence of European rescue ships in the central Mediterranean is minimal.

At the end of the coming year, Frontex, which has begun to assume a greater role in Libya operations, will become the EUs biggest agency by budget.

In February EU foreign ministers called for a renewal of Sophia, but ministers noted that any indication that it was coming into contact with migrant boats could lead to the withdrawal of maritime assets from the relevant area.

The fate of those seeking to escape Libya by boat is likely to mirror that of the migrants caught in the lights of the Seagull 75 in March last year. The occupants of one boat were successfully intercepted by the Libyan coastguard. What happened to those on other boat is contested, but the weight of evidence suggests they are missing, presumed dead.

This article was supported by the Migration Newsroom, an investigative reporting collaboration between Lighthouse Reports and leading European media.

More here:
Revealed: the great European refugee scandal | World news - The Guardian