Archive for the ‘Libya’ Category

Libya: From Misrata to Tripoli, a first-hand account from Dr Tankred Stoebe – Mdecins Sans Frontires (MSF) International

Almost all of the roughly 40 female inmates had medical complaints. More than half complained about scabies, followed by general body pain, often associated with mental trauma.

April 2017 - The fighting continues in Libya, a country fragmented by a multitude of power centres. Since mid-2014, the humanitarian situation has deteriorated due to civil war and political instability. Millions of people across Libya are affected, including refugees, asylum-seekers and migrants. Doctor Tankred Stoebe spent the month of January in the country coordinating a medical assessment that took him from Misrata to Tripoli. He told us what he saw.

Misrata is steeped in history. Strategically located on the Mediterranean Sea, the city is known as much for its pride and independence as for its traders, smugglers, and pirates. Misrata is a sandy and dusty but bustling desert city that was subjected to heavy fighting between February and May 2011. Economically and militarily powerful, its hospitals are well-equipped and its health system better organised than those in the east. Compared to Benghazi and Tripoli, Misrata is for now relatively safe so, this was where we decided to set up base.

Every day we saw sub-Saharan Africans, each with their own agricultural or construction tools, brushes and drills, stationed at the citys crossroads looking for work as day labourers. Few are arrested, but some get caught at police checkpoints and interned in camps before being deported back to their home countries. There are around 10,000migrants in Misrata, mostly from Niger, Chad, and Sudan. Fearful of arrest and deportation, they usually go to pharmacies and buy the often high-priced drugs they are advised to take when they fall sick. For more serious problems, they prefer private medical facilities because, they are not required to report undocumented patients. But when they have a chronic illness, their only choice is to go home. When I asked them if they didnt want to get on a boat to Europe, they smiled and shook their heads: Its too dangerous. We dont want to die in the sea.

Between Misrata and Tripoli

Living conditions and hygiene are truly appalling in the detention centre in a small town halfway between Misrata and Tripoli, the Libyan capital. Intended for 400 refugees, there were only 43 detainees, 39 of them women from Egypt, Guinea, Niger or Nigeria whod been there for a month with no contact from the outside world. Most come from Nigeria, and told me their homes had been bombed. The Libyan coastguard intercepted their inflatable dinghy near the Mediterranean coast and they were sent to the detention centre.

Rooms were small, dirty and jam-packed with mattresses. As we entered the hall, there was a putrid stench. We walked through puddles of urine. There were no showers, the toilets didnt flush, and the women had to relieve themselves in buckets. They used a little of their drinking water to wash. They were utterly desperate and begged me to help them get back to Nigeria. When I told them I was a doctor, they didnt believe me to start with, but they accepted the treatment we offered them. More than half had scabies for which we prescribed medicines. Others suffered emotional trauma or at least, thats what we realised from the stories they told us about their journey and from their almost palpable fear. When I asked them if they thought they would try to get to Europe again, they replied, horrified, Never again!

Sanitation area in a detention centre west of Misrata, ankle-deep in urine and faeces, is the only place which inmates can use for washing and sanitation.

Close to the oil fields, Syrte is known for being the birthplace of Muammar Gaddafi. In spring 2015, Islamic State who controlled 300 kilometres of the countrys coastline made Syrte its stronghold in Libya. It was only in December 2016 that militias from Misrata succeeded in retaking the town with help from the US Air Force. The battle lasted seven months.

After being provided with a special permit and a police escort we managed to enter the coastal town. It was reduced to rubble; not one building has been left intact. A deathly silence hangs over the town.

We went to Ibn Sina hospital. Relatively unscathed by the bombs, it had been ransacked. Abandoned over a year ago, the hospital was once a modern, 350-bed facility equipped with several operating theatres, an intensive care unit, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner, a cardiac catheterisation laboratory, and 20 practically new dialysis machines. Its now completely destroyed, with flooded floors, smashed windows and sagging ceiling tiles*.

When we reached Tripoli I was stunned by the towering height of the ruins. MSF colleagues were in the capital providing assistance to people spread among seven detention centres.

Most of those wanting to cross the Mediterranean to Italy are from sub-Saharan Africa Nigeria, which is mired in conflict; Eritrea, governed by an authoritarian regime; and Somalia, a country embroiled in civil war. To reach the Libyan coast, people have to pass through Chad and Niger, both particularly poor countries. According to the International Organization for Migration, over 300,000people crossed through these countries last year. However, there are no precise figures on how many have died of hunger or thirst, or from falling off a truck along the way. According to most estimates, as many people have died crossing the desert as those who have drowned in the Mediterranean Sea. Survivors are insistent that the desert is by far the hardest part of the journey.

The many dead migrants also pose a problem. We went to hospital mortuaries full with unidentified corpses. Many have been there for months. As the authorities dont have the resources for DNA testing, its impossible to identify the dead and ship them back home, or bury them.

Dr Tankred Stoebe is the former President of MSF Germany and a current member of MSF's International Board. Testimony based on personal experience in January 2017. Please note that due to the volatile context, the situation changes quickly in Libya.

*As of April 21, 2017, the Ibn Sina hospital is expected to re-open by end of April.

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Libya: From Misrata to Tripoli, a first-hand account from Dr Tankred Stoebe - Mdecins Sans Frontires (MSF) International

Libya’s rival governments agree path to peace: Reports – Middle East Eye


Middle East Eye
Libya's rival governments agree path to peace: Reports
Middle East Eye
Libya's warring rival governments have reached an agreement to end months of fighting in a deal brokered by Italy, according to reports from all sides. The Tobruk-based House of Representatives and the Tripoli-based, UN-backed government of national ...
UN-backed Libya leader to meet Trump in WashingtonThe New Arab
US 'Can Barely Stand' Russia Taking Part in Ending Syrian WarSputnik International

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Libya's rival governments agree path to peace: Reports - Middle East Eye

Tobruk parliament forms new dialogue team – The Libya Observer


The Libya Observer
Tobruk parliament forms new dialogue team
The Libya Observer
Earlier this month, the House of Representatives set preconditions, which it called the national constants, in order to resume talks with rival political institutions. Libya has plunged into political chaos since 2014 with two rival parliaments and ...

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Tobruk parliament forms new dialogue team - The Libya Observer

Richard Lobban: Powers wage new ‘cold war’ in Libya – The Providence Journal

By Richard Lobban

Strategic thinking focuses on historical trends, the balance of forces, national and economic interests, ideology, naval choke points, diplomacy, information and the military capacity of friends and foes.

So it was in the bipolar Cold War until the 1990s, followed by a descendant multi-polar world, which is now evolving into a precarious new world order that needs strategic recalibration, especially along the southeastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea.

Obviously, the Suez Canal is a highly strategic choke point.

Oil-addicted global economies make for energy vulnerability. The old cleavage between communistversus capitalist worlds is surmounted by revivalist extremisms in religion and nationalism. Weapons are widespread. Failed, failing or dictatorial states have thwarted the Arab Spring" of 2011. Major undersea oil and gas fields are contested by Cyprus, Lebanon and Israel.

New Egyptian offshore gas fields and oil fields in the Western desert may resuscitate its ailing political economy. Two amphibious assault ships, built by France for Russia, were insteadsoldto Egypt along with new German submarines, to protect its new fields.

The unsolved Palestine-Israel-Gaza-Hamas-Sinai conflicts stay on a timer fuse. Thousands of African refugees are trafficked across, or drowning in, the Mediterranean while destabilizing a fearful, polarized Europe. The prolonged catastrophes in Syria (and its Putin-Assad alliance), South Sudan and Yemen have daily hemorrhages of horror. The "punitive" attack by President Donald Trump on Syrian aircraft has only resulted in "red lines" dripping more blood in high heat, but little light. Trans-Saharan insurgent-terrorists add their destabilizing and depressing miseries, making uslong for the "good old days" of the Cold War.

For decades, Muammar Gaddafi ruled erratically with his Green Book to develop Libya while fomenting revolts, assassinations, corruption and harsh domestic repression, sustained by vast oil wealth and a small population.

The Arab Spring ignited in Tunisia in 2010, and spread in 2011 to Egypt, Bahrain, Syria, Yemen and Libya,where it became an existential threat to both Gaddafi and his citizens. He was killed on Oct. 20, 2011.

Arms flooded across Libya and the Sahel. The success of the Libyan revolution created optimism in the West that the country would turn to democratic elections and a multiparty parliament.

Instead, on Sept. 11-12, 2012, Libyan extremists killed U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three aides in the U.S. consulate in Benghazi. After spending millions of dollars andweekson accusations of blame, U.S. Special Forces captured two of the alleged attackers.

By January 2014, the Libyan General National Congress (GNC) was deadlocked by diverse local militias. Aspiring strongman Khalifa Haftar (now field marshal of the Libyan National Army) called for the overthrow of Libyan Islamists. By summer 2014, open warfare unfolded between Tripoli and Misrata militias against Haftar, who had ties to Gaddafi and the Central Intelligence Agency.

Elections promised for June 25, 2014, were stillborn. Haftars Operation Dignity was marketed by his enemies as an attempted coup, while the Islamist Ansar esh-Sharia disrupted Benghazi, and the war on terrorism was inconclusive. The oil economy and the 2014 elections faltered; militia skirmishes worsened.

The new parliament was failing when Dawn factions from Misrata seized the Tripoli airport that July 13. By September 2014, the GNC, or Dawn, backed by the United Nations, Europe, Turkey, Qatar, the United States and various militias, clashed with Dignity, backed by Egypt, Russia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates.

These militias did rout Sirte of its murderous ISIS franchise but threatened critical oil ports. Now, in 2017, some oil production is restored, but remains vulnerable. Both the Tripoli "government" and the Benghazi "government" are being wooed by Moscow, with Haftar flying to Moscow and the Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov steaming by Libya.

The Moroccan Accord of 2015, the cease-fires, and peace and unity negotiations, have all failed. Will the legitimate GNC al-Hisi prevail over Haftars LNA as new proxies of a warming Cold War? Will Western collaboration with Islamist militias be fatal? Will Haftars increasing control of the oil fields make him stronger or betray his personal ambitions?

It is late for a serious strategic doctrine based in morality and law rather than hand-wringing that addressesthe interconnected high-stakes issues. Without it, it is impossible to fashion the tactical toolkit to see the way out, or ahead.

Richard Lobban is an adjunct professor of African (Security) Studies at the Naval War College. He is coauthor of "Libya: History and Revolution" and "African Insurgencies" with U.S. Marines Lt. Col. Christopher Dalton.

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Richard Lobban: Powers wage new 'cold war' in Libya - The Providence Journal

Italy: NGOs collaborate with human traffickers in Libya – Middle East Monitor

The Italian prosecutor in Sicily yesterday accused migrant rescue organisations of colluding with human traffickers in Libya.

We have evidence that there are direct contacts between certain NGOs and people traffickers in Libya, Carmelo Zuccaro told Italian newspaper La Stampa.

We do not yet know if and how we could use this evidence in court, but we are quite certain about what we say; telephone calls from Libya to certain NGOs, lamps that illuminate the route to these organisations boats, boats that suddenly turn off their transponders, are ascertained facts.

Zuccaro leads a group of prosecutors investigating the trafficking and exploitation of migrants.

The Public Prosecutors Office in Catania, Sicily, has opened an investigation to determine who funds the organisations and for what purpose.

Read: Italy and Libyan tribes agree on deal to curb migrant flow

The European Border and Coast Guard Agency said in a report published in December that there is possible collaboration between human traffickers and NGOs migrants rescue boats that roam the Mediterranean.

Some of the organisations involved in migrant rescues include Doctors Without Borders, Medecins Sans Frontieres, SOS Mediterranee and Save the Children.

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Italy: NGOs collaborate with human traffickers in Libya - Middle East Monitor