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The European Union is defending its record on helping relieve migrant suffering in Libya after U.N.-backed investigators accused the bloc of abetting human rights abuses and other crimes there

By

LORNE COOK Associated Press

March 28, 2023, 9:14 AM ET

3 min read

BRUSSELS -- The European Union on Tuesday defended its record on helping relieve the suffering of migrants in Libya after U.N.-backed investigators accused the 27-nation bloc of abetting human rights abuses and other crimes in the largely lawless north African country.

Libya is a major departure point for people from northern Africa and elsewhere willing to make the perilous Mediterranean Sea crossing in poorly maintained boats in search of better lives or sanctuary in Europe.

At least 529 migrants were reported dead and 848 others missing off Libya last year, according to the United Nations' International Organization for Migration (IOM). More than 24,680 people were intercepted by the Libyan coastguard as they tried to leave, and brought back.

Presenting a report on Monday by a U.N.-commissioned fact-finding mission to Libya, investigator Chaloka Beyani said that EU assistance to the Libyan authorities, migration department and the coastguard has aided and abetted the commission of the crimes, including crimes against humanity.

The report said that migrants, some of whom might have been eligible for asylum, were apprehended, detained, and disembarked in Libya solely to prevent their entry into Europe as a corollary of both European immigration policy and the economic agenda of migration in Libya via their subsequent detention and exploitation.

The EUs executive branch, the European Commission, said it takes the allegations very seriously but noted that its work in Libya is vital and often done in coordination with U.N. agencies like the IOM and U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

Not doing anything is not an answer. And our objective, our joint objective, is to help to improve the situation of the people stranded in Libya, commission spokesman Peter Stano said.

Of course, there are incidents. There are issues which are a source of concern. We try to address them with the partners in Libya, with the international partners, Stano told reporters in Brussels. He said the EUs Libya mission had cooperated with the investigators.

The report also said that investigators believe the EU and its member countries directly or indirectly, provided monetary and technical support and equipment, such as boats, to the Libyan Coast Guard and the Directorate for Combating Illegal Migration, which were used to intercept and detain migrants.

But Stano denied suggestions that the EU might be paying to keep migrants in Libya.

We are not financing any Libyan entity. We are not giving physical money to partners in Libya, he said. What we are doing is allocating a lot of money, which is then usually used by our international partners. A lot goes through the U.N., for example.

Earlier this month, the commission said that a new boat was recently handed over for coastguard service. Two more new boats and an undisclosed number of refurbished ones are yet to come.

At the same time, the EU has refurbished six other boats for Libyas General Administration of Coastal Security, which is separate to the coastguard. In February, Italy supplied two more fast boats to the GACS fleet. The commission said Tuesday that 142 GACS officers have received EU training.

Italy, where most people leaving Libya arrive, has received at least 15 million euros ($16.3 million) in EU money to fund migration and border control work there.

Last year, in a written answer to a question from the European Parliament, EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson said that the EU has devoted around EUR 700 million ($760 million) to Libya during 2014-20, including EUR 59 million ($64 million) for the coastguard and GACS.

___ Follow APs global migration coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/migration

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EU defends its Libya migrant record over UN team allegations - ABC News

Geneva: UN backed human rights experts said on Monday there is evidence that crimes against humanity - including sexual slavery - have been committed against Libyans and migrants in the North African country. The investigators commissioned by the U.N.-backed Human Rights Council also faulted the European Union for sending support to Libyan forces that they say contributed to crimes against migrants and Libyans. The findings come in an extensive new report, based on hundreds of interviews with hundreds of people including migrants and witnesses, that wraps up a fact-finding mission created nearly three years ago to investigate rights violations and abuses in Libya. Libya was plunged into turmoil after a NATO-backed uprising in 2011 toppled longtime autocrat Moammar Gadhafi, who was later killed and left the country divided between rival governments on the east and west. Oil-rich but largely lawless Libya has in recent years emerged as the dominant transit point for migrants seeking a better quality of life in Europe, and activists have long decried horrible conditions faced by migrants.

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UN-backed probe cites crimes against humanity in Libya - Indiatimes.com

CAIRO (AP) U.N. inspectors visiting southern Libya found drums containing natural uranium reported missing earlier this month in the chaos-stricken country, the U.N. nuclear watchdog said Saturday.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said earlier this month that some 2.5 tons of natural uranium stored at a site in the southern town of Sabha had gone missing. Forces of the Libyan commander Khalifa Hifter said they found the missing material close to the storage site.

In a statement to The Associated Press on Saturday, the Vienna-based agency said U.N. inspectors visited the area on March 21 and saw the material being transferred to the storage site.

U.N. inspectors found that a relatively small amount of UOC (Uranium ore concentrate) was still unaccounted for, it said.

The IAEA said, however, there was no immediate radiological risk at the location.

The statement said investigations were still underway on the matter including reconciling the quantities of natural uranium at the site with those previously verified by the IAEA.

The IAEA said its director-general, Rafael Mariano Grossi, informed member states Friday about the findings of the visit.

Natural uranium cannot immediately be used for energy production or bomb fuel, as the enrichment process typically requires the metal to be converted into a gas, then later spun in centrifuges to reach the levels needed.

But each ton of natural uranium if obtained by a group with the technological means and resources can be refined to 5.6 kilograms (12 pounds) of weapons-grade material over time, experts say.

The material dates back to the rule of late dictator Moammar Gadhafi, who stored thousands of barrels of so-called yellowcake uranium for a once-planned uranium conversion facility that was never built in his decadeslong secret weapons program.

Estimates put the Libyan stockpile at some 1,000 metric tons of yellowcake uranium under Gadhafi, who declared his nascent nuclear weapons program to the world in 2003 after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

Sabha is located some 660 kilometers (410 miles) southeast of Tripoli, in the countrys lawless southern reaches of the Sahara Desert. Libya has descended into chaos following a NATO-backed uprising that ousted and later killed Gadhafi. The country has for years been split between rival administrations in the east and the west, each backed by armed groups.

Following the IAEAs revelations in mid-March that some 2.5 tons of natural uranium had gone missing in Libya, Hifters forces said they found the drums some 5 kilometers (3 miles) south of the facility.

In a statement, Hifters forces claimed that Chadian separatist fighters, who operate in the region, likely attempted to steal the drums after mistaking them for weapons and ammunition. Hifters forces provided no evidence for the accusation.

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UN nuclear watchdog says missing Libya uranium found - The Associated Press

BRUSSELS (AP) The European Union on Tuesday defended its record on helping relieve the suffering of migrants in Libya after U.N.-backed investigators accused the 27-nation bloc of abetting human rights abuses and other crimes in the largely lawless north African country.

Libya is a major departure point for people from northern Africa and elsewhere willing to make the perilous Mediterranean Sea crossing in poorly maintained boats in search of better lives or sanctuary in Europe.

At least 529 migrants were reported dead and 848 others missing off Libya last year, according to the United Nations International Organization for Migration (IOM). More than 24,680 people were intercepted by the Libyan coastguard as they tried to leave, and brought back.

Presenting a report on Monday by a U.N.-commissioned fact-finding mission to Libya, investigator Chaloka Beyani said that EU assistance to the Libyan authorities, migration department and the coastguard has aided and abetted the commission of the crimes, including crimes against humanity.

The report said that migrants, some of whom might have been eligible for asylum, were apprehended, detained, and disembarked in Libya solely to prevent their entry into Europe as a corollary of both European immigration policy and the economic agenda of migration in Libya via their subsequent detention and exploitation.

The EUs executive branch, the European Commission, said it takes the allegations very seriously but noted that its work in Libya is vital and often done in coordination with U.N. agencies like the IOM and U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

Not doing anything is not an answer. And our objective, our joint objective, is to help to improve the situation of the people stranded in Libya, commission spokesman Peter Stano said.

Of course, there are incidents. There are issues which are a source of concern. We try to address them with the partners in Libya, with the international partners, Stano told reporters in Brussels. He said the EUs Libya mission had cooperated with the investigators.

The report also said that investigators believe the EU and its member countries directly or indirectly, provided monetary and technical support and equipment, such as boats, to the Libyan Coast Guard and the Directorate for Combating Illegal Migration, which were used to intercept and detain migrants.

But Stano denied suggestions that the EU might be paying to keep migrants in Libya.

We are not financing any Libyan entity. We are not giving physical money to partners in Libya, he said. What we are doing is allocating a lot of money, which is then usually used by our international partners. A lot goes through the U.N., for example.

Earlier this month, the commission said that a new boat was recently handed over for coastguard service. Two more new boats and an undisclosed number of refurbished ones are yet to come.

At the same time, the EU has refurbished six other boats for Libyas General Administration of Coastal Security, which is separate to the coastguard. In February, Italy supplied two more fast boats to the GACS fleet. The commission said Tuesday that 142 GACS officers have received EU training.

Italy, where most people leaving Libya arrive, has received at least 15 million euros ($16.3 million) in EU money to fund migration and border control work there.

Last year, in a written answer to a question from the European Parliament, EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson said that the EU has devoted around EUR 700 million ($760 million) to Libya during 2014-20, including EUR 59 million ($64 million) for the coastguard and GACS.

___ Follow APs global migration coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/migration

Original post:
EU defends its Libya migrant record over UN team allegations - The Associated Press

Migrants are brought to the Geo Barents rescue ship, operated by Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders), after being rescued from a wooden boat off the coast of Libya in the central Mediterranean Sea, March 24, 2023. Darrin Zammit Lupi/Reuters

GENEVA (AP) U.N.-backed human rights experts said Monday there is evidence that crimes against humanity have been committed against Libyans and migrants in chaos-stricken Libya, including women being forced into sexual slavery.

The investigators commissioned by the U.N.-backed Human Rights Council also faulted the European Union for sending support to Libyan forces that they say contributed to crimes against migrants and Libyans, and called on EU authorities to review their policies toward Libya.

READ MORE: Dozens dead, missing after boat carrying migrants broke apart off Italian coast

The findings come in an extensive new report, based on interviews with hundreds of people, including migrants and witnesses, that wraps up a fact-finding mission created nearly three years ago to investigate rights violations and abuses in the North African country. The mission shared its findings with the International Criminal Court.

Oil-rich but largely lawless Libya has in recent years emerged as the dominant transit point for migrants seeking a better quality of life in Europe. Activists have long decried horrible conditions faced by migrants who were trafficked and smuggled across the Mediterranean.

Spokespersons for the government in the capital of Tripoli, which works in western Libya, and the forces of a powerful commander that controls eastern and southern Libya, were not immediately available for comment.

The investigators found "reasonable grounds to believe that crimes against humanity were committed against Libyans and migrants throughout Libya," said Mohamed Auajjar, the head of the fact-finding mission. Speaking in Arabic through a translator at a news conference in Geneva, he said his team unearthed "numerous cases of arbitrary detention, murder, torture, rape, enslavement, sexual enslavement and enforced disappearance."

The Libyan coast guard, which has received training and equipment from the EU, has worked "in close coordination" with trafficking networks in Libya, the report said. The "wide-scale exploitation of vulnerable, irregular migrants" churned up "significant revenue" that spurred continued rights violations, it said.

READ MORE: Libyan guards accused of sexually assaulting minors

"The support given by the EU to the Libyan coast guard in terms of pull-backs, pushbacks, (and) interceptions led to violations of certain human rights," said investigator Chaloka Beyani. "You can't push back people to areas that are unsafe, and the Libyan waters are unsafe for the embarkation of migrants."

He said the European bloc and its member states weren't found to be responsible for war crimes, but "the support given has aided and abetted the commission of the crimes."

European Commission spokesman Peter Stano told reporters Monday that the EU did not fund the Libyan coast guard "nor any other entity in Libya," adding that the EU assistance was meant to "improve their performance."

"We are providing assistance to help them improve their performance when it comes to search and rescue, be it with vessels, be it with equipment, or previously training with a focus exactly on human rights," he said.

The investigators documented enslavement, rape "at times at gunpoint" and other sexual abuse against women and men, including by guards working both for state authorities and trafficking groups.

Investigators cited evidence of crimes against humanity in prisons in parts of eastern Libya controlled by forces of commander Khalifa Hifter, as well as in areas controlled by an umbrella group of militias led by Abdel-Ghani al-Kikli, an infamous warlord known as "Gheniwa" in the capital, Tripoli.

The U.N. migration agency, in its latest report published in mid-March, tallied nearly 700,000 migrants with 42 nationalities in Libya as of the end of last year. The investigators said the situation of human rights has been getting worse.

READ MORE: UN nuclear watchdog says 2.5 tons of uranium has gone missing in Libya

"The mission's mandate is ending when the human rights situation in Libya is deteriorating, parallel State authorities are emerging, and the legislative, executive and security sector reforms needed to uphold the rule of law and unify the country are far from being realized," it said.

Libya was plunged into turmoil after a NATO-backed uprising in 2011 toppled longtime autocrat Moammar Gadhafi, who was later killed, and left the country divided between rival governments on the east and west. The United Nations has been struggling to try to shepherd the country toward new elections.

The International Criminal Court has an ongoing investigation in Libya that was originally called for by the U.N. Security Council during the upheaval that led to Gadhafi's ouster. In November, ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan said his office had joined a coalition of nations investigating human trafficking in the country.

Magdy reported from Cairo. Lorne Cook in Brussels contributed to this report.

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Evidence of crimes against humanity in Libya, experts say - PBS NewsHour