Day: March 27, 2023

UGC images released by German NGO Sea-Watch and verified by Eurovision Social Network show what they say is the Libyan coastguard patrol vessel 656 dangerously approaching the Ocean Viking ship, operated by the French NGO SOS Méditarranée, during a rescue mission off Libya coast. SOS Méditarranée has accused the Libyan coastguards of “deliberately” endangering its crew and migrants by firing gunshots in the air to prevent it from carrying out a rescue operation.

Source: France24.com

U.N. investigators have accused Libyan state security forces and armed militia groups of committing a wide array of crimes with impunity, many of which could amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The three-member U.N. Independent Fact-Finding Mission on Libya on Monday presented its final report on what it called “the country’s deteriorating human rights situation” since the beginning of 2016. And the picture it paints is not pretty.

The investigation has documented numerous cases of arbitrary detention, murder, rape, enslavement, extrajudicial killing and enforced disappearance. Despite the gravity of these crimes, the investigators noted that nearly all the survivors interviewed refrained from lodging official complaints “out of fear of reprisals, arrest, extortion and a lack of confidence in the justice system.”

Mohamed Auajjar, chair of the Libya Fact-Finding Mission, said the body found “overwhelming evidence that migrants have been systematically tortured while in detention and that sexual slavery, a crime against humanity, was committed against migrants.”

Factual evidence gathered by the U.N. investigators found that state institutions, groups, and individuals were involved in the commission of violations and abuses.

The mission found that crimes against humanity were committed against migrants in places of detention under the actual or nominal control of the Libyan Directorate for Combating Illegal Migration, the Libyan coast guard and other entities.

Auajjar said, “These entities received technical, logistic and monetary support from the European Union and its member states.”

Chaloka Beyani, a member of the mission, added that “the support given by the E.U. to the Libyan coast guard in terms of fallbacks, pushbacks and interceptions lead to violations of certain human rights.”

“Non-refoulement, for example – you cannot push back people to areas that are unsafe,” he said, “and the Libyan waters are unsafe for embarkations of migrants quite clearly.”

The ongoing systemic widespread character of the crimes documented by the mission strongly suggests that individuals and officials of security and military agencies at all levels of the hierarchy and affiliated militias are implicated.

“The violations and abuses investigated by the mission were connected primarily to a reconsolidation of power and wealth by militias and other state-affiliated groups through, for instance, the misappropriation of public funds,” said Auajjar. “It is beyond question that significant revenue arising from the widescale exploitation of vulnerable irregular migrants incentivized the continuation of the violations documented.”

The mission has undertaken 13 field trips to Libya since it was established by the U.N. human rights council in June 2020. It has interviewed more than 400 survivors and witnesses and collected more than 2,800 items of information.

More than 670,000 migrants from over 41 countries were present in Libya when the mission began its investigation and these numbers have been increasing since 2021.

The International Organization for Migration reports around 5,000 migrants are held in official detention centers, though it believes that number is greatly underestimated. The number of migrants detained in secret facilities run by armed militia groups is unknown.

Many of the migrants, who include asylum seekers and refugees, come from West and East Africa and from lands as far away as Afghanistan.

Beyani notes smuggling and trafficking of migrants has become a huge money-making industry in Libya. He said geography largely determines which migrants are likely to be kidnapped and held for ransom.

“So, those coming from East Africa, for example, attract a fairer price in terms of smuggling and trafficking than those coming from West Africa.

“The perception is that perhaps they have a lot more money in this regard,” he added.

The report said there are reasonable grounds to believe migrants “were enslaved in official detention centers as well as ‘secret prisons,’ and that rape as a crime against humanity was committed.”

It said detainees were subjected regularly to torture, solitary confinement, held incommunicado and denied adequate access to water, food, toilets, medical care and other essentials.

It also deplored the systematic discrimination of women in Libya, saying that their situation has markedly deteriorated over the past three years.

The mission is calling for ending impunity through criminal accountability on the international and local level and recommends supporting the Libyan judiciary to strengthen its capacity for accountability.

The investigators are calling for the immediate release of all those arbitrarily detained in Libya and for secret prisons to be dismantled. It stressed that perpetrators of gross human rights violations must be held accountable for their crimes.

The report will be submitted to the U.N. Human Rights Council later this week.

Source: Voice of America

The Minister of Defense in the Libyan government appointed by the House of Representatives, Ahmed Houma, welcomed the meeting of a number of Libyan army leaders from the east and west of the country in Tripoli, under the supervision of the 5 + 5 Military Committee and the auspices of the United Nations Mission in Libya.

Houma considered that this step is a continuation of previous steps over the past two years, with the aim of unifying the military and security institutions, describing the meeting as “the peace of the brave, and a departure from the wounds that exhausted the homeland, and almost destroyed its sovereignty and independence.”

The minister called on all Libyans to turn to such steps and strengthen them, in order to reach unity, reunification and real national reconciliation.

And he stressed that the military institution, if unified, will be the guarantor of the success of any elections, as well as the acceptance of all parties to its results by the force of law and not by the force of violence and fighting.

Houma praised the efforts of the UN envoy, “Abdullah Batili”, for Libya’s exit from the crisis that has been pending in Libya for years, calling on everyone not to listen to any voices that would stir up strife among the Libyans.

Source: Libyan News Agency

The members of the Joint Military Committee (5 + 5) and the leaders of the security and military units in the western, eastern and southern regions of Libya renewed their commitment to rejecting fighting and violence in all its forms on all Libyan soil.

This came in a statement issued at the conclusion of the meetings of the Military Committee (5 + 5) yesterday, Sunday, in Tripoli, in the presence of the leaders of the security and military units from western, eastern and southern Libya, and under the auspices of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Abdullah Batili.

The conferees stressed the need for the dialogue to be Libyan-Libyan and within the Libyan territories, the rejection of foreign interference in the Libyan affairs, and the full commitment to everything that resulted from the dialogue between the military and security leaders with the Joint Military Committee (5 + 5) in its first meeting in Tunis and the second in Tripoli.

They also agreed to proceed with the elections endeavor, urging the House of Representatives and the High Council of the State to complete the procedures entrusted to them, stressing the role of the military and security institutions in providing an appropriate environment to advance the political process and hold free and fair elections during the year 2023.

The conferees affirmed the continuation of work in the path of unifying military institutions through the chiefs of staff, unifying security institutions and the rest of the state institutions, completing efforts for national reconciliation and reparations, and increasing efforts to solve the problems of the displaced, and those affected by fighting and wars.

The members of the Joint Military Committee (5 + 5) and the leaders of the security and military units in western, eastern and southern Libya agreed on the need to find a unified government for all Libyan state institutions.

Source: Libyan News Agency