The IOM reported that at least 11 migrants, including a pregnant woman, have drowned on Sunday when their boat capsized off the coast of Libya trying to reach Europe. The incident was the third of its kind in the Mediterranean in a week.
The UN-recognized government in Libya has detained a coastguard commander Abdalrahman Al-Milad in connection with human trafficking and migrant smuggling. The UN Security Council previously accused him of intentionally sinking migrant boats.
The UN Human Rights Office OHCHR has called for urgent action to deal with the horrors faced by migrants trying to cross the central Mediterranean sea and the situations they confront in Libya as well as once they reach Europe.
Amnesty International in a new report said that thousands of Europe-bound migrants who were intercepted and returned to Libya were forcefully disappeared after being taken out of unofficial detention centers. Amnesty urged the EU to reconsider its cooperation with Libyan authorities.
The UN migration agency IOM reported on Friday, September 25, that a shipwreck off the Libyan coast had left at least 13 dead and 22 survivors which were brought ashore by fishing vessels.
Two dozen migrants are believed to have drowned after their boat capsized off the Libyan coast in the night from Sunday to Monday. So far this year, close to 600 people have died in the Mediterranean trying to get to Europe.
The Council of State, Italy's highest administrative court, rejected an appeal contesting the 2017 allocation of 2.5 million euros to Libya's interior ministry from Italy's Africa Fund. The appeal claimed that the funds, used to support Libya's coast guard, worsened the condition of migrants in Libya.
The German frigate "Hamburg" set sail from Wilhelmshaven in the north of Germany on August 4. It is expected to reach its Mediterranean patrol zone off the Libyan coast by mid-August. The boat will be part of the EU operation Irini, designed to help enforce a UN weapons embargo on Libya in the hope of stabilizing the country.
The International Rescue Committee (IRC) has urged Libya to release more than 200 migrant children who have recently been intercepted in the Mediterranean Sea and returned to Libya.
Protesters in Rome took to the streets on Monday, July 27, to call on the Italian government to stop financing the Libyan coast guard and to close detention centers. They also called for a transfer of migrants from Libya through humanitarian corridors.
Libyan authorities shot dead three Sudanese migrants in a coastal town when they tried to escape after they were returned to Libya by coast guards, the UN migration agency said Tuesday. Over 6,500 migrants have reportedly been intercepted and brought back to Libya this year.
In an unprecedented case, the captain of an Italian commercial vessel is to be taken to court for returning migrants he rescued in the Mediterranean to civil war country Libya. The man is accused of violating international law, under which Libya is not a safe harbor.