BENGHAZI/ROME: Authorities in eastern Libya said they had arrested and would deport 81 migrants from Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia who had escaped from smugglers after failing to reach Europe.
The migrants were reported to authorities by an imam at a mosque on the coast to the south of the Libyan city of Benghazi, officials said on Thursday.
“They were arrested in the Zueitina area at a camp of illegal migrants,” said Ahmed Al-Arifi, an official from the department for countering illegal migration in the eastern city of Benghazi. “They were arrested for deportation back to their countries.”
Libya is the main departure point for migrants trying to reach Europe by sea, with nearly 120,000 crossing the central Mediterranean last year.
Almost all leave from western Libya, though departures dropped sharply in July last year when some armed factions began blocking crossings. Most of the migrants are from West African countries, though some East Africans enter Libya through Sudan.
Arifi said a total of 5,686 migrants had been deported from eastern Libya last year, up from 2,912 in 2016.
One of the Eritrean migrants, speaking at a detention center in Benghazi, said he had arrived in Libya in March last year from Sudan, after paying $4,000 for the journey.
He was taken across the Sahara desert to the western Libyan smuggling hub of Sabratha, and waited there with other migrants for about four months before being told the sea route had been closed.
Armed groups began preventing boat departures in Sabratha in July, and a major smuggling group was pushed out of the city in September.
The Eritrean said he had then crossed back through the town of Bani Walid to Ajdabiya in the east, close to Zueitina. Smugglers had demanded another $2,000 for the trip to Europe, but he was unable to pay and fled mistreatment at their hands.
“I wanted to go to Italy to work but unfortunately it wasn’t possible,” he said. “We suffer from severe poverty in our country and there’s a dictatorial system.
“Now because we were treated badly by smugglers we are suffering from illnesses and skin diseases. We don’t want to return to our country, we want to go to Europe.”
Italian coast guard service meanwhile said that 264 migrants had been rescued from a boat off the coast of Calabria, where traffickers have increasingly been using smaller boats recently.
The vessel was sighted by a plane belonging to the EU border agency Frontex and the migrants were rescued off the southern city of Crotone, a spokesman said.
The spokesman said the boat probably came from Turkey. Several coast guard boats and a British ship working for Frontex took part in the rescue effort.
In December 2014 and January 2015, traffickers abandoned about six large vessels carrying hundreds of migrants off the Italian coast after putting the vessels on auto pilot.
The boats had started their journey in Turkey.
“It is rare to see large vessels in this zone, in general it is sailboats here,” the spokesman said.
For Italy, 2017 was a turning point: The country went from large-scale arrivals in the first six months to a sharp drop off, thanks to controversial agreements with Libya, from where many such boats set sail.
81 migrants held in Libya face deportation
81 migrants held in Libya face deportation
Supplies running out at Syria’s Al-Hol camp as clashes block aid deliveries
DAMASCUS: An international humanitarian organization has warned that supplies are running out at a camp in northeast Syria housing thousands of people linked to the Daesh group, as the country’s government fights to establish control over an area formerly controlled by Kurdish fighters.
The late Friday statement by Save the Children came a week after government forces captured Al-Hol camp, which is home to more than 24,000 people, mostly children and women, including many wives or widows of Daesh members.
The capture of the camp came after intense fighting earlier this month between government forces and members of the Kurdish-led and US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces during which forces loyal to interim President Ahmad Al-Sharaa captured wide areas in eastern and northeastern Syria.
The SDF signed a deal to end the fighting after suffering major defeats, but sporadic clashes between it and the government have continued.
Save the Children said that “critical supplies in Al-Hol camp are running dangerously low” as clashes are blocking the safe delivery of humanitarian aid.
It added that last week’s clashes around the camp forced aid agencies to temporarily suspend regular operations at Al-Hol. It added that the main road leading to the camp remains unsafe, which is preventing humanitarian workers from delivering food and water or running basic services for children and families.
“The situation in Al-Hol camp is rapidly deteriorating as food, water and medicines run dangerously low,” said Rasha Muhrez, Save the Children Syria country director. “If humanitarian organizations are unable to resume work, children will face still more risks in the camp, which was already extremely dangerous for them before this latest escalation.”
Muhrez added that all parties to the conflict must ensure a safe humanitarian corridor to Al-Hol so basic services can resume and children can be protected. “Lives depend on it,” she said.
The SDF announced a new agreement with the central government on Friday, aiming to stabilize a ceasefire that ended weeks of fighting and lay out steps toward integrating the US-backed force into the army and police forces.
