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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

VIENNA, March 24 (Reuters) - Most of the roughly 2.5 tons of natural uranium ore concentrate (UOC) recently declared missing from a site in Libya have been found at that site, the U.N. nuclear watchdog told member states on Friday in a statement seen by Reuters.

The International Atomic Energy Agency informed member states in a similar confidential statement on March 15 first reported by Reuters that 10 drums containing the UOC had gone missing from a Libyan site not under government control.

While the amount of fissile material is less than that required for a nuclear bomb, and would need to go through processes known as conversion and enrichment to be usable in one, the IAEA said at the time that losing it "may present a radiological risk, as well as nuclear security concerns".

Following eastern Libyan forces' statement last week that they had found the drums of UOC near the warehouse they were taken from in southern Libya, the IAEA carried out an inspection on Tuesday and found that only "a relatively small amount of UOC was still unaccounted for," Friday's IAEA statement said.

"During the (inspection), Agency inspectors observed that drums that had not been present at the declared location at the time of the previous (inspection) had since been brought back and left in close proximity to the declared location," it said.

"Agency inspectors confirmed that these drums contained UOC and witnessed their transfer back to within the declared location for storage," the statement added.

Reporting by Francois Murphy; Editing by Leslie Adler and Alistair Bell

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Exclusive: IAEA confirms almost all missing uranium in Libya now ... - Reuters

A high-level delegation of Libyan officials and parliamentarians traveled to Washington last week to rally U.S. support for a stalled election process in a bid to end their countrys decadelong cycle of conflict. Without an end to the political gridlock over a U.N. proposal to hold elections, the country could spiral into another wave of conflict, these Libyan officials warned, with far-reaching implications for North Africa and southern Europe.

Libya is split politically between two rival governments, one based in the countrys capital of Tripoli, and another based in the countrys east and nominally backed by a Libyan warlord, Khalifa Haftar. The United Nations recognizes the Tripoli-based Government of National Unity (GNU).

The situation in Libya now is calm, but with the armed elements in the east and west, if there is a delay in reaching an agreement, the country could break out in conflict again, said Abdullah al-Lafi, the deputy head of the Presidential Council, a U.N.-backed GNU body, during the visit to Washington this month. The lack of elections will only lead to more divisions.

Yet other regional experts warn that the international communitys fixation on elections is misguided, as elections wont fix many of the countrys underlying sources of political instability, deep-seated corruption, and economic malaise. The debate underscores how Libya has devolved into a political quagmire and left its population of nearly 7 million with little hope for a fix to the countrys decade of violence. A bevy of rival powers vying for influence within Libya, including Russia, Turkey, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and major European countries, has exacerbated the instability and served to prolong the crisis. The UAE and Russia support Haftars Libyan National Army in the conflict, whereas Turkey intervened in support of the U.N.-recognized government.

Driving foreign forces from Libya is a basic component for the success of the elections project, Al-Lafi said.

The Libyan delegation that traveled to Washington this month met with Biden administration officials in the White House and State Department, as well as staff members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in a bid to rally more U.S. support for the U.N.-brokered elections. Libya has been mired in political limbo since a U.N.-brokered peace plan in 2021 established an interim governmentone meant to be replaced by an elected government in December of that year, but elections never took place. The U.N. deal halted most of the fighting that had plagued the country for a decade, after a popular uprising and NATO air campaign led to the ouster and killing of longtime Libyan dictator Muammar al-Qaddafi in 2011.

The country is now nearly 10 years into this violent conflict, and I suspect that public interest in the democratic process is losingif they havent lost it alreadymomentum, said Thomas Hill, an expert on North Africa with the U.S. Institute for Peace. Another failure only increases the probability that Libyans resign themselves to the belief that only a strongman, capable of imposing peace through military force, is the way forward.

While experts believe that a majority of Libyans want elections, the countrys two dueling administrations have been deadlocked in negotiations for years over the legal basis for elections and the composition of the new political system. Russia, which backs Haftar, has maintained a military footprint in Libya through the shadowy mercenary Wagner Group. Western officials have warned that Russia could play a spoiler role in Libyan elections if it doesnt throw its support behind the U.N.-brokered election plan. Al-Lafi echoed those fears.

Today we notice that there are military forces from Russia in the region. This represents a major risk even to the success of the elections, he said. We need international support for an agreement of the departure of foreign armed forces that are in Libya.

The top U.N. envoy for Libya, Senegalese diplomat Abdoulaye Bathily, said in a press conference this month in Tripoli that the country could hold elections this year if both rival legislative bodies hash out clear electoral laws and a road map for elections by June. The alternative, he said, would be more chaos and gridlock that heighten the risk of conflict. Successive interim arrangements, endless transition governments, legislative bodies whose terms of office have expired are a source of instability, he said.

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman in late February hosted Bathily and senior officials from Egypt, France, Germany, Italy, Qatar, Turkey, the UAE, and the United Kingdom to discuss international support for the elections. The meeting failed to make progress on the negotiations.

But elections alone cant fix Libyas problems, said Claudia Gazzini, an expert on Libya at the International Crisis Group. For starters, Libya still needs to unify its financial institutions, military, and executive branch, all of which are divided, she said.

Good government, not more ballots, is what the country needs, Gazzini said, but thats not forthcoming.

Rather than money being used for better governance, essentially, its a downward slope of bad governance, corruption, and a thriving illicit economy, Gazzini said. Theres a very naive idea of the transformative power of elections.

On the other hand, Libya cant get good governance until it has good government, and that is going to require elections at some point. Elections solve nothing on their own; instead, they are the key that unlocks the door so problem-solvers can get to work, Hill said.

One sticking point over election negotiations for both rival governments underscores the problem: Neither side wants to move forward with a vote unless current members of the legislatures are given immunity from prosecution for crimes they may have committed while in office. Al-Lafi said negotiations over that point are still being conducted.

But that sticking point is turning into a sticky wicket. A decade of war has entrenched de facto leaders who have enjoyed immunity and impunity, a lack of accountability that has helped lead to the current crisis and could preclude elections, said Hanan Salah, a Libya researcher at Human Rights Watch.

The prospects are rather dim, she said, primarily because the different groups that are currently vying for control have absolutely no interest in changing the status quo. A decade of fighting and division has left scars on more than bodies.

We have seen interim governments come and go, but nobody was held to account over the unlawful killings, over the disappearances and mass arbitrary detentions, Salah said. This gave people the idea that you can commit a crime at zero cost. Whats the incentive to now come together and actually agree on a plan, on a roadmap, to hold elections in a free and fair way, to bring the country onto a democratic path?

For the entrenched elite, the tenuous present is more profitable than a renewed war, especially without the prospect of large-scale foreign support, Gazzini suggested. Theyrecynically speakinghappier now doing business than war.

But for the bulk of ordinary Libyans, the political stasis is hardly an oasis, Salah said. Electricity is unreliable at best. Libyans wait hours in line to fill their cars up with gasoline. And parents fear that their children may face shellings while at school.

The loser here really is ordinary Libyans who just want to go about their daily lives and have a normal life, Salah said. People really want the situation to normalize. People want to have a dignified existence.

Link:
Libya Wants Elections but Needs More Than a Ballot Box - Foreign Policy

The5+5Joint Military Committee(JMC), in the presence of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General of the United Nations for Libya, organized in Tripoli on Sunday a meetingbetweencommanders of the military and security units in the western, eastern, and southern regions.

The meeting was the largest of its kind in Libya in a decade.

In a statement on Monday, the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) said the meeting aimed to follow up on the pledges made by participants at a similar meeting that was held in Tunis in mid-March on preparing to hold elections this year.

The mission said Sundays talks focused on therole of the military and security institutions in providing aconduciveenvironment for advancing the political process and holding free and fair elections during 2023.

Head of the UN mission Abdoulaye Bathily called on all commanders in the western, eastern, and southern regions to consolidate peace in Libya.

The commanders of security and military units will play a significant role in agreeing on security arrangements and other major issues related to the elections, he added.

At the Tripoli meeting, the gatherers agreed that dialogue should be LibyanLibyan and inside Libya.

They rejected foreign interference in Libyan affairs and expressed full commitment to the outcomesofthe dialogues between the military and security commanders that were decided during theirfirstand secondmeetings held respectivelyin Tunis andTripoli.

They rejected fighting andall forms ofviolence throughout the entirety of Libyas territory, said the UN statement.

They committed to continuing work towards unifying the military institutions through the Chiefs of Staff;unifying the security institutions;andthe rest of the state institutions.

They also agreed to form a unified government for all Libyan state institutions and to increase efforts toaddressthe challenges facing those displaced and those affected by fighting and wars.

They agreed to complete national reconciliation and reparation efforts and committed to pursue elections and the need for the House of Representatives and theHighCouncil of the State to complete thetasksentrusted withthem.

The gatherers agreed to hold the next meeting in Benghazi during the month of Ramadan.

Head of the interim Government of National Unity (GNU) Abdulhamid al-Dbeibah said stability in Tripoli provided an opportunity to advance local and international efforts to unify the military and security institution.

It is also an opportunity to make progress in preparations to hold elections that would end the transitional period, achieve peace and resolve divisions and war in the country, he added.

GNU Interior Minister Imad Trabelsi, who chaired Sundays meeting, told Bathily his ministry was ready to secure the elections.

The government of stability, headed by Fathi Bashagha, also welcomed the meeting. Its Defense Minister Ahmed Houma said Sundays talks follow up previous efforts that have been made over the past two years with the aim of unifying the military and security institutions.

He called on Libyans to support such steps that would eventually achieve real national reconciliation.

Should the military be unified, then it will guarantee the success of any elections, he stressed.

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Libyan Parties Agree to Continue Efforts to Unify Army, Form Unified Govt - Asharq Al-awsat - English

Trkiye stressed that the normalization of relations with Egypt would reflect positively on the situation in Libya, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and the region in general.

Spokesman for the Turkish presidency Ibrahim Kalin said in a televised interview that Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglus recent visit to Egypt was "very important and productive."

Ankara believes that improving relations with Egypt will benefit many nations, he continued.

"We clearly believe that the normalization of Trkiye-Egypt relations is vital for the two countries and the region's dynamics. It is also beneficial for Libya and Palestine. Moreover, it is in the interest of the whole region in the fight against terrorism," he said.

The situation in neighboring Libya is one of the most important files for Egypt in its talks with Trkiye. Cairo has repeatedly expressed its rejection of the deployment of Turkish troops in Libya and its sending of thousands of Syrian mercenaries there.

Diplomatic sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that Libya is the file that will have the greatest impact on the normalization of relations.

The sources believed Trkiye would take steps to ease Egyptian concerns, especially as it wants to make rapid progress in the gas file in the eastern Mediterranean and sign an agreement to demarcate the maritime borders.

Ankara aims to establish a foothold in the region, where it has become isolated, despite the memorandum of understanding on maritime jurisdiction it signed with the former Government of National Accord in 2019.

Upon returning from Cairo, Cavusoglu said Egypt was uncomfortable with Trkiye's presence in Libya.

"Our presence there does not pose a threat to Egypt. And this presence came at the invitation of the legitimate government at that time and continued based on the desire of subsequent governments," he stated.

Cavusoglu added that Ankara and Cairo agreed to continue close consultation and cooperation on Libya.

Regarding the maritime agreement signed with the GNA, Cavusoglu asserted it was not against Egypt's interests, just as Egypt's deal with Greece was not against Trkiye.

Regarding Egypt's position on the agreement to explore energy resources in the eastern Mediterranean, Cavusoglu remarked that it was not a problem.

"Every country concludes hydrocarbon agreements with another. Egypt is currently objecting to this agreement under the pretext that the current government in Libya cannot sign agreements because its mandate has ended."

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Trkiye: Normalization of Ties with Egypt Will Reflect Positively on ... - Asharq Al-awsat - English