According to the UN refugee agency, the Gathering and Departure Facility in the capital of Libya is so overcrowded that it can no longer functions as a transit center for vulnerable migrants.
A boat carrying around 190 migrants was intercepted by the Mauritanian coast guard on Friday, the UN migration agency said. This comes less than two days after 63 migrants drowned when their vessel sank in the same waters en route from The Gambia. The country's president has vowed to crack down on people traffickers.
Vincent Cochetel, the UNHCR Special Envoy for the Central Mediterranean, called on European states in Brussels on Wednesday, December 4 to offer more resettlement places for refugees in Libya. So far, only Italy has offered a firm commitment.
A Rome court has ruled that 14 Eritreans who were pushed back to Libya ten years ago have the right to enter Italy and request international protection. The former prime minister and defense minister have been ordered to pay 210,000 euros in damages.
Under international law, ships have a clear duty to help those in distress at sea. But when the ships are run by non-governmental organizations, and the people in distress are migrants, there are very often questions about what is 'the right thing to do'. The German news agency epd asked a maritime law expert for some answers.
The IOM and the UN Security Council have expressed concern over the humanitarian situation in war-torn Libya. IOM director Antonio Vitorino has called for all migrant detention centers to be closed.
The French Ministry of Defense announced in February 2019 that it would deliver six semi-rigid speed boats with gun ports to the Libyan coast guard by Spring 2020. On December 2, the government announced they would be halting this delivery after several NGOs filed a lawsuit against the action.
In the third of FRANCE 24’s special reports from Libya, Catherine Norris Trent, Julie Dungelhoeff and Abdallah Malkawi expose the horrors suffered by migrants intercepted by Libyan authorities in the Mediterranean Sea and dispatched back to overcrowded Libyan detention centres.
UNHCR is trying to reduce the number of migrants in an EU-funded center in Tripoli, noting that the situation in the center is very difficult.
The Libyan coast guard has reportedly taken 30 migrants off the supply ship "OOC Panther" that rescued them on Saturday in the Central Mediterranean. According to charity search and rescue groups, armed Libyan guards had previously boarded the ship in an attempt to force the migrants to return to Libya.
The bodies of five migrants who died when a boat capsized in rough waters off the southern Lampedusa coast a week ago have been found, Italy's coast guard said on Sunday. This brings the overall death toll to 18.
Some 137 migrants picked up overnight in rescue operations off the Libyan coast are waiting for a safe port to come ashore. Seven migrants, including two new-born babies, have already been evacuated to Lampedusa for medical reasons.