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CAIRO (AP) Forces in western Libya on Wednesday released more than 100 prisoners who had been captured while fighting under the banner of the country's eastern-based commander, in a gesture of reconciliation following recent accords, officials said.

The fighters, troops of commander Khalifa Hifter, were freed in the coastal town of Zawiya in a televised ceremony attended by senior officials from the newly appointed transitional government.

Mohammad Younes Menfi, head of the presidential council, called the move a significant step toward a national reconciliation initiative launched by the council, after bitter years of fighting between rival governments in East and West.

Those released were seen wearing traditional white uniforms and caps at the ceremony in a soccer stadium, before rejoining their families.

Musa al-Koni, deputy head of the presidential council, called for the release of all of Libya's war prisoners.

Hifters forces launched an offensive in April 2019 to try and capture Tripoli, but the campaign collapsed last June.

The warring sides reached a cease-fire deal in October that virtually ended the war and paved the road for U.N.-led political talks. Those talks then led to the appointment of an interim government in February, ahead of elections later this year.

Oil-rich Libya plunged into chaos after a 2011 NATO-backed uprising toppled and killed longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi. The country for years has been divided between two governments, one in the east and another in the west, each backed by a vast array of militias as well as foreign powers.

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Libya officials say over 100 eastern war prisoners released

The family of a British-based photographer killed in 2011 by pro-Gaddafi forces during the Arab spring have launched a campaign to pressure Libya to investigate his death.

Anton Hammerl, 41, was shot after being targeted as part of a small group of journalists, including the US reporter James Foley who himself was subsequently kidnapped and murdered by Islamic State in Syria.

Left for dead in the desert after Foley and fellow journalists Clare Morgana Gillis and Manu Brabo were captured, Hammerls body has never been recovered.

The case was briefly investigated as a war crime by the international criminal court, but it was dropped after the death of Muammar Gaddafi and the fall of his regime.

The lack of a body has meant no inquest into Hammerls death has taken place in the UK, where the father of two, a joint South African-Austrian citizen, lived with his family.

After years of chaos and conflict in Libya, the family hope the new interim government will be able to help them locate his body.

The family are being represented by Caoilfhionn Gallagher QC, who has been heavily involved in the push to secure justice for the murdered Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, and they are also being supported by Foleys mother, Diane.

With the 10th anniversary of his killing on Monday, the family plan to take the case to the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions and the UN working group on forced disappearances.

On the face of it we believe there is reasonable evidence to believe that Antons death was a war crime, said Gallagher, who added that research into Hammerls death that James Foley had been working on at the time of his own murder had been supplied to the campaign.

This wasnt journalists just caught in a crossfire. They were identifiable as civilians and journalists when they were targeted and Anton was killed during an enforced abduction. She added that in the intervening period the international community has treated his death with a shrug of the shoulders.

Hammerl was among a number of journalists killed during the chaos of the Arab spring and its long aftermath not least in Syria including Marie Colvin of the Sunday Times, the Sky News cameraman Mick Deane, Foley himself, and the photojournalists Chris Hondros and Tim Hetherington.

Hammerl had been covering the conflict between pro-regime and anti-Gaddafi forces when the group he was with came under fire from Libyan soldiers in a remote desert location near Brega on 5 April 2011.

Initially the family were led to believe by Libyan officials that all four journalists had been captured, and it was only six and a half weeks later when the survivors were released that it was revealed Hammerl had been killed and his body left in the desert.

Since his death, there has been sporadic and vague information about the location of his body, with a suggestion in 2012 that a body matching his description had been found in a mass grave of 170 people and DNA samples had been taken but never delivered for processing.

His wife, Penny Sukhraj-Hammerl, who had just given birth to the couples second child when Hammerl was killed, hopes the new government in Libya will finally take action to help find Hammerls body and explain his death.

Its been hard, a very hard 10 years for the family but its our hope after all these years there might be a different flavour in the air, a different calibre of leadership that may consider things in a different way.

So were hopeful. They have things at their disposal they should have been able to use if they would consider what weve been through. Because weve not even had a body. To think you knew someone who you had heard their voice the day before, and suddenly theyve vanished. Theres always a real hole.

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Family of photographer urge Libya to investigate his death - The Guardian

Five people have died and more than 500 have been returned to Libya in separate incidents in the central Mediterranean in the space of two days.

In the latest shipwreck in the Mediterranean Sea involving migrants headed to Europe, two women and three children reportedly drowned when a boat carrying dozens of people capsized off the Libyan coast, a UN official told the Associated Press (AP) news agency on Wednesday (March 31).

Safa Msehli, spokesperson for the International Organization for Migration (IOM), said the incident took place late Tuesday. A fishing boat and Libya's coast guard managed to rescue around 77 migrants and returned them to Libya, she said.

According to IOM's Msehli, "a total of 400 migrants were intercepted and returned to Libya late Tuesday and taken to detention centers," AP reported. Over the weekend, Libya's coast guard had already intercepted nearly 1,000 migrants and brought them back to Libya.

Tuesday's deadly shipwreck was the latest along the central Mediterranean migration route. According to the IOM, 232 migrants died in the central Mediterranean between January 1 and April 1 this year, up from 137 in the same period in 2020.

A day later, on Wednesday (March 31), Libya's coast guard intercepted an inflatable boat carrying 138 Europe-bound migrants off the country's northwestern coast, the country's navy said. More than half of the migrants were from Sudan, while the rest were from other African countries, the navy added.

According to the AFP news agency, among the group were nine women and three children. The whole group was taken to a naval base in the capital Tripoli on Libya's northwestern coast.

Over the past decade, Libya has become a main transit point for migrants fleeing war and poverty in Africa and the Middle East. The oil-rich country of some seven million people plunged into chaos following a NATO-backed uprising that toppled and killed longtime ruler Moammar Gadhafi in 2011.

People smugglers have thrived in the subsequent lawlessness, often packing desperate families into overcrowded and unsafe rubber boats that capsize along the dangerous sea route across the central Mediterranean to Europe. Over the last several years, hundreds of thousands of migrants have reached Europe either on their own or after being rescued at sea.

Despite the dangers -- more than 17,000 people have drowned along the way in the central Mediterranean since 2014 --, the number of migrants risking the Mediterranean crossing to Europe has been rising lately: 6,669 people reached Italian shores by boat since the beginning of the year, 2.5 times as many as in the same period last year, according to Italian interior ministry data. More than half of all arrivals said their country of origin was Ivory Coast, Tunisia, Guinea, Bangladesh or Sudan.

Others are intercepted and forcibly returned by the country's coast guard, whereupon they are often left at the mercy of armed groups or confined in squalid detention centers without adequate food and water, rights groups say.

An AP investigation in 2019 found that "militias in Libya tortured, extorted and otherwise abused migrants for ransoms in detention centers under the nose of the UN, often in compounds that receive millions in European money, paid to Libya's government to slow the tide of migrants crossing the Mediterranean."

Over the past years, the European Union has partnered with Libya to prevent migrants from making the journey by sea to Europe. Among other things, it has been training and funding Libya's controversial coast guard, despite a record of abuses, to prevent migrants from reaching European soil.

Meanwhile, distress hotline Alarm Phone reported early Wednesday morning that around 80 people in distress on a rubber off Malta boat contacted them. At the time of publication early Wednesday afternoon, no rescue had been confirmed.

With AFP, AP

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Mediterranean: Five migrants dead, hundreds returned to Libya - InfoMigrants

Issued on: 29/03/2021 - 18:49Modified: 29/03/2021 - 18:50

France reopened its embassy in Tripoli on Monday after a seven-year closure, in a show of support for Libyas new unity government. A decade after French forces helped topple strongman Muammar Gaddafi, FRANCE 24 takes a look at Frances damaged standing in the North African country in an interview with Libya specialist Jalel Harchaoui.

Announcing plans to reopen the embassy earlier this month, French President Emmanuel Macron said France owed a debt to Libya and the Libyans for a decade of disorder a reference to the 10 years of turmoil and violence that followed the fall of Gaddafi in 2011.

Macron was speaking after a meeting in Paris with Mohammed al-Menfi, the head of Libyas presidential council. He promised Frances full support to the countrys transitional government, which took over earlier this month from two rival administrations that ruled Libyas eastern and western regions.

France had positioned itself as a mediator in the tussle pitting the internationally recognised Government of National Accord (GNA), which governed western Libya, against the eastern forces loyal to the renegade military commanderGeneral Khalifa Haftar. But its reputation as an honest broker was tarnished by accusations it secretly sided with Haftar, seeing in him a bulwark against terrorism claims Macron repeatedly rejected.

While Haftars final defeat last year helped pave the way for a new unity government, the Libyan reset hasalso underscored the shifting power-play in the war-torn North African country, cementing the growing Turkish and Russian clout.FRANCE 24 spoke to Libya expert Jalel Harchaoui, a researcher at the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime, about Frances efforts to restore its reputation and influence in the country.

FRANCE 24: How significant is Frances decision to reopen its embassy?

Jalel Harchaoui: The embassy is reopening in a very specific context. The political and security situations have altered dramatically over the past few months, surprising some foreign players like France, which had followed theprocess from the sidelines and treated it with a degree of scepticism. Naturally, Paris is now keen to exploit the new situation in Libya. The countrys political climate has changed considerably, thanks to a new style of governance embodied by the prime minister, a former businessman. However, there are other changes the French will have to deal with, most notably the growing Turkish and Russian presence. France can always lament Turkeys encroachment but it is powerless to halt it. The Turks are settled for the long term in the country, from where they will hold on to military bases.

In speaking of a French debt towards Libya, has Macron acknowledged a failure of French diplomacy in the country?

In using the word debt, Macron appeared to be asking for a chance to make up for the past and play a part in the new Libya. But the reset underway in the country does not necessarily mean France will be able to regain its standing there. It will first have to restore the credibility it lost by offering political and diplomatic support to General Haftar, who has since been pushed out of the picture. By referring to Libyas decade of disorder, Macron was hoping to dissociate himself from his predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy, who sought to topple Gaddafi in 2011. However, one mustnt forget that Libyans today are far more traumatised by Haftars deadly offensive on Tripoli in 2019. The memory of the fighting, in which thousands were killed, is still raw. And then theres the millions of dollars lost because of the oil blockade imposed by Haftar, in the midst of economic and health crises. In the eyes of many Libyans today, Frances real failure is to have played peace broker while betting on a warmonger whom future historians are unlikely to treat kindly.

>>How the Wests silence emboldened Libyas Haftar

How can France restore its credibility and play a role in Libya?

Post-Gaddafi Libya is essentially open to Europe and, as such, Libyans pay close attention to what France says or does. But it is not certain that this will last. Other powers that are neither African nor European are setting foot in the country, like Turkey and Russia. Even China could play a bigger part in Libyas reconstruction than France. Right now were seeing a flurry of French diplomatic activity in Libya, but France needs a coherent strategy with specific objectives that lead to measurable results. There are many areas in which France can have a positive impact, knowing that Libyans are generally appreciative and mindful of such gestures. But it is important to secure tangible results. As we have seen in Lebanon, in the wake of the Beirut port blast last year, French diplomacy can be proactive and yet produce zero results.

This article has been adapted from the original in French.

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To regain its standing in Libya, France must restore the credibility it lost - FRANCE 24 English

Libya may be able to maintain its current level of oil production of around 1.2 million barrels per day (bpd) until the end of the year as the oil sector is finally receiving enough funding for field maintenance and development, Libyas Oil Minister Mohamed Oun told Bloomberg in an interview.

Oun was sworn in as the first oil minister of the country since 2014 as the new Libyan unity government took office earlier this month. The new cabinet is the first unity government of the war-torn country since 2014, and could potentially pave the way to more stability in oil production in the African OPEC member, which is exempted from the OPEC+ cuts.

The government has now approved a budget of US$1.6 billion to the National Oil Corporation (NOC), the largest recipient of Libyas development budget, according to Bloomberg.

There is a reasonable allotment of funds for oil-sector activities, Oun told Bloomberg, noting that the funds could be enough for the needs of the oil sector for the rest of this year.

Apart from frequent blockades of oil ports amid the fighting, Libyas oil production has suffered in recent years from a chronic lack of funds to NOC for oilfield development and infrastructure maintenance.

This has led to volatile production volumes from Libya, which is exempted from the OPEC+ cuts due to its fragile security situation. A more stable level of production, however, could mess with the OPEC+ plans to manage oil supply this year.

When the alliance announced the massive cuts in April 2020, Libya was pumping less than 100,000 bpd, and its oil export terminals were blocked by the self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA) of General Khalifa Haftar. The blockade ended in September, and Libya has managed to quickly restore its production to the pre-blockade levels, surprising many analysts.

Days before Libyas unity government was sworn in, NOCs chairman Mustafa Sanalla told Bloomberg Television that the country planned to raise its oil production to 1.45 million bpd by the end of this year.

By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com

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Libya's Oil Production Set To Stabilize In 2021 - OilPrice.com