PARIS: The UN's special envoy on migration in the Mediterranean, Vincent Cochetel, has accused the EU of "blindness" on the plight of refugees and migrants in Libya and called for a rethink of the policy of returning migrants intercepted at sea to the war-torn country after Tuesday night's airstrike on a migrant detention center outside Tripoli claimed 44 lives.
This is a tragic event which could have been avoided (as) we had passed on to all parties the GPS coordinates of all the detention camps.
This detention center is a former military camp. It is totally inappropriate to place people there in arbitrary detention.
We knew there was this risk of attacks one day with the risk of collateral damage, intentional or unintentional, so we had called for the closure of the center but nobody listened to us.
There is a certain blindness among European countries about the situation of migrants in Libya, which has been deteriorating for months. The recent fighting has created an even worse situation. It cannot be business as usual in terms of this cooperation on returns to Libya.
We have been repeatedly saying that people should not be returned to Libya because people disappear between the points of disembarkation and the detention centers. Some people are taken to the detention centers where they are mistreated and held arbitrarily while others end up being rented out or sold to business people.
Because it has become harder to smuggle people out of Libya by boat since the middle of last summer traffickers are trying to make a return on their 'investment' in other ways. We've received accounts from migrants who've said their families at home had been held to ransom three times to get them out of detention centers.
And now migrants and refugees can also die in these centers because they have become hostages of a political and military situation over which they have no control.
On my last visit I found cases of severe adult malnutrition. You see people who are just skin and bone, like in the camps in Bosnia or under the Khmer Rouge. The Libyan authorities say they don't have the money to feed people in detention centers -- the humanitarian people say 'it's not our responsibility because the people are held arbitrarily and we shouldn't encourage this system by feeding people'. They're both talking at cross-purposes.
We're seeing a bit of food arriving in the centers. There are two scenarios: either business people who come looking for free labour in the detention centers bring a bit of food that the detainees can prepare in return, or there are centers where people say that they have to pay for food.
In the detention centers run by the authorities, or by the NLA (the National Liberation Army of General Khalifa Haftar) in the east, there are cases of mistreatment, of beatings and injuries.
Sometimes it's a punishment, other times it's to extort money. Sometimes it's not the guards themselves who carry out acts of violence or torture: they ask detainees to carry out abuses on other detainees, namely in the case of sexual torture. The aim is to humiliate people, subjugate them, create a sense of powerlessness and impose discipline.
The worst forms of torture are carried out in the secret detention centers. The people who escaped from Bani Walid, a hub for migrants trying to reach the coast, told us of the existence of around 10 hangars where people were being held -- around 500 people per hangar, so about 5,000 altogether. There is a local religious association whom the traffickers ask to remove the bodies. There are about five bodies a week, according to recent accounts. It's appalling.
The EU's new leadership team must renew pressure on Libyan authorities and all the parties to the conflict to come up with an alternative to this system of arbitrary detention. We can help the Libyan authorities manage an alternative system of controls which does not amount to arbitrary detention.
We need a very visible and quick disembarkation system for people rescued at sea and for people to be held responsible for the way they are treated. Once the migrants are disembarked those who do not need international protection should be immediately sent back to their country of origin, with the requisite support. For those who do need international protection, there needs to be a more effective distribution mechanism than the boat-by-boat approach currently taken by the EU.
I understand that Italy, France and others have undertaken efforts to boost the capacity of the Libyan coastguard, but it has to be done through certain precise norms, including verifying how the resources are used and how the coastguard behave, etc. Most Libyan coastguard members are sailors who do a good job but there are a certain number of criminal elements involved in the process, who are acting with total impunity.
I understand Europe's strategic interests but we have to move beyond that. Have the conflicts which are spurring people to travel to Libya been resolved? There are currently 19 conflicts on the African continent. We're seeing the situation in Burkina Faso and Mali deteriorate and Sudan is completely unstable. We have these really big crises unfolding all around Libya which are creating movements of people. We have to tackle the issues upstream.
UN envoy on migrants criticizes ‘blindness’ of EU on Libya
UN envoy on migrants criticizes ‘blindness’ of EU on Libya
- This detention center is a former military camp
- The worst forms of torture are carried out in the secret detention centers
Another former US State Department official alleges Israeli military gets ‘special treatment’ on abuses
- “In my experience, Israel gets special treatment that no other country gets,” says Charles O. Blaha, former director of a State Department security and human rights office
- Late last year, Josh Paul resigned as a director overseeing arms transfers to other countries’ militaries in October in protest of the US rushing arms to Israel amid its war in Gaza
WASHINGTON: A former senior US official who until recently helped oversee human-rights compliance by foreign militaries receiving American military assistance said Wednesday that he repeatedly observed Israel receiving “special treatment” from US officials when it came to scrutiny of allegations of Israeli military abuses of Palestinian civilians.
The allegation comes as the Biden administration faces intense pressure over its ally’s treatment of Palestinian civilians during Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza. And it matters because of who said it: Charles O. Blaha.
Before leaving the post in August, he was a director of a State Department security and human rights office closely involved in helping ensure that foreign militaries receiving American military aid follow US and international humanitarian and human rights laws.
Blaha said his departure from the State Department after decades of service was not related to the US-Israeli security relationship. He is the second senior State official involved in that relationship to assert that when it comes to Israel, the US is reluctant to enforce laws required of foreign militaries receiving American aid.
“In my experience, Israel gets special treatment that no other country gets,” Blaha said. “And there is undue deference, in many cases, given” to Israeli officials’ side of things when the US asks questions about allegations of Israeli wrongdoing against Palestinians, he added.
He spoke to reporters at an event where he and other members of an unofficial, self-formed panel of former senior US civilian and military officials released a report pointing to civilian deaths in specific airstrikes in Gaza. They said there was “compelling and credible” evidence that Israeli forces had acted illegally.
Blaha’s comments echoed those of another State Department official and panel member, Josh Paul. Paul resigned as a director overseeing arms transfers to other countries’ militaries in October in protest of the US rushing arms to Israel amid its war in Gaza.
Asked about the allegations from the two, a State Department spokesman, Vedant Patel, said “there is no double standard, and there is no special treatment.”
Israeli officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Israel consistently says it follows all laws in its use of US military aid, investigates allegations against its security forces and holds offenders accountable.
Israel historically is the United States’ biggest recipient of military aid, and Biden on Wednesday signed legislation for an additional $26 billion in wartime assistance. But Biden has come under growing pressure over that support as Palestinian deaths mount.
The latest Israel-Hamas war began on Oct. 7, when Hamas and Islamic Jihad, two militant groups backed by Iran, carried out a cross-border attack that killed 1,200 people in Israel. Israel responded with an offensive in Gaza that has caused widespread devastation and killed more than 34,000 people, according to local health officials.
In coming days, the administration says it will announce its official findings from reviews it did into allegations of especially serious human rights abuses by specific Israeli military units. Those units would be barred from receiving US military aid if the US review confirms those allegations.
Separately, the Biden administration also is expected to disclose by May 8 whether it has verified assurances from Israel that the country is not using US military aid in a way that violates international or human rights law. Both Israel’s written assurance and the US verification were mandated by a new presidential national security memo that Biden issued in February.
The February agreement was negotiated between the Biden administration and members of his own Democratic Party, who had been pushing for the US to begin conditioning military aid to Israel on improving treatment of Palestinian civilians.
Panel members released their report Wednesday to urge the US to scrutinize specific attacks in Gaza that the former officials argued should lead to a conclusion that Israel was wrong when it confirmed it was complying with the laws. If that determination is made, the US could then suspend military aid.
Wednesday’s unofficial report points to 17 specific strikes on apartments, refugee camps, private homes, journalists and aid workers for which the former US officials and independent experts allege there’s no evidence of the kind of military target present to justify the high civilian death tolls.
They include an Oct. 31 airstrike on a Gaza apartment building that killed 106 civilians, including 54 children. Israeli officials offered no reason for the strike, and a Human Rights Watch probe found no evidence of a military target there, the officials said. Israel has said in many of the instances that it is investigating.
Hamas releases video showing well-known Israeli-American hostage
- Goldberg-Polin is one of the most recognized captives. Posters with his image are pinned up across Israel
JERUSALEM: Hamas released a hostage video on Wednesday showing a well-known Israeli-American man who was among scores of people abducted by the militants in the attack that ignited the war in Gaza.
The video was the first sign of life of Hersh Goldberg-Polin since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel, and its release ignited new protests in Jerusalem calling on the government to do more to secure the captives’ release.
In the video, Goldberg-Polin accused Israel’s government of abandoning the people who are being held hostage by Hamas. He also claimed that some 70 captives have been killed in Israel’s bombing campaign. Goldberg-Polin was clearly speaking under duress, and the claim could not be independently verified. It was not clear when the video was made.
Goldberg-Polin, 23, was at the Tribe of Nova music festival when Hamas launched its attack from nearby Gaza. In the video, Goldberg-Polin is missing part of his left arm.
Witnesses said he lost it when attackers tossed grenades into a shelter where people had taken refuge. He had tied a tourniquet around it before being bundled into the truck by Hamas.
Goldberg-Polin is one of the most recognized captives. Posters with his image are pinned up across Israel. His mother, Rachel Goldberg, has met with world leaders and addressed the United Nations.
Though there was no date on the video, Goldberg-Polin appeared to reference the weeklong Jewish holiday of Passover, which began on Monday.
His parents said they were relieved to see him alive but were concerned about his health and well-being, as well as that of the other hostages.
“We are here today with a plea to all of the leaders of the parties who have been negotiating to date,” said his father, Jon Polin, naming Egypt, Israel, Qatar, the United States and Hamas.
“Be brave, lean in, seize this moment and get a deal done to reunite all of us with our loved ones and end the suffering in this region,” he said.
Hostages’ families have accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government of not doing enough to secure the release of their relatives.
After the Hamas video was made public, hundreds of Israelis gathered outside Netanyahu’s official residence in central Jerusalem on Wednesday, calling on the government to strike a deal to bring home hostages. Many held posters of Goldberg-Polin, and some of the protesters set cardboard boxes on fire.
“We are afraid for his life, so we went to protest and call for the government to do whatever is possible to bring him and everybody else back, as soon as possible,” said one of the marchers, Nimrod Madrer. “Bring them back home,” the crowd chanted.
At the nearby Great Synagogue, a large crowd jeered the country’s ultranationalist national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, chanting “shame” as he exited the building following a Passover gathering. One protester banged on Ben-Gvir’s car and was pushed away by police as it drove off.
Hamas and other militants abducted around 250 people in the Oct. 7 attack and killed around 1,200, mostly civilians. They are still believed to be holding around 100 hostages and the remains of some 30 others. Most of the rest were freed in November in exchange for the release of 240 Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.
Khalil Al-Hayya, a senior Hamas official, said Goldberg-Polin’s family had asked mediators to inquire about his fate for humanitarian reasons.
His family was “searching the world for any sign of him,” Al-Hayya said in an interview with Hamas-run Al-Aqsa TV broadcast on Wednesday. Hamas’ armed wing ”sent a strong message by publishing this young man’s message directed at Netanyahu,” Al-Hayya said.
The US, Qatar and Egypt have spent months trying to broker another ceasefire and hostage release, but the talks appear to have stalled. Hamas has said it will not release the remaining hostages unless Israel ends the war, which has killed over 34,000 Palestinians, according to local officials.
Netanyahu has rejected those demands, and says Israel remains committed to destroying Hamas and bringing all the hostages home. He has come under mounting criticism in Israel, where some say it will be impossible to do both.
Wars in Gaza and Sudan ‘drive hunger crisis affecting 280 million worldwide’
- New report on global food insecurity says outlook for 2024 is ‘bleak’
JEDDAH: More than 280 million people worldwide suffered from acute hunger last year in a food security crisis driven by conflicts in Gaza and Sudan, UN agencies and development groups said on Wednesday.
Economic shocks also added to the number of victims, which grew by 24 million compared with 2022, according to a report by the Food Security Information Network.
The report, which called the global outlook for this year “bleak,” is produced for an international alliance of UN agencies, the EU and governmental and non-governmental bodies.
Food insecurity is defined as when populations face food deprivation that threatens lives or livelihoods, regardless of the causes or length of time. More geographical areas experienced “new or intensified shocks” and there was a “marked deterioration in key food crisis contexts such as Sudan and the Gaza Strip,” said Fleur Wouterse, a senior official at the UN’s Food and Agricultue Organization.
Since the first report by the Global Food Crisis Network covering 2016, the number of food-insecure people has risen from 108 million to 282 million, Wouterse said. The share of the population affected within the areas concerned had doubled from 11 percent to 22 percent, she said.
Protracted major food crises are ongoing in Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Syria and Yemen. “In a world of plenty, children are starving to death,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said.
“War, climate chaos and a cost-of-living crisis, combined with inadequate action, mean that almost 300 million people faced acute food crisis in 2023. Funding is not keeping pace with need.”
According to the report, situations of conflict or insecurity have become the main cause of acute hunger. For 2024, progress would depend on the end of hostilities, said Wouterse, who said aid could rapidly alleviate the crisis in Gaza or Sudan, for example, once humanitarian access to the areas was possible.
Yemen’s Houthis say they targeted American and Israeli ships
- The Iran-aligned group said it targeted the US ship Maersk Yorktown, an American destroyer in the Gulf of Aden and Israeli ship MSC Veracruz in the Indian Ocean
- “The Yemeni armed forces confirm they will continue to prevent Israeli navigation,” Sarea said
CAIRO/DUBAI: Houthi militants in Yemen have attacked what they said were two American ships and an Israeli vessel, the group’s military spokesman said on Wednesday, the first such attack in more than two weeks.
The Iran-aligned group said it targeted the US ship Maersk Yorktown, an American destroyer in the Gulf of Aden and Israeli ship MSC Veracruz in the Indian Ocean, the spokesman, Yahya Sarea, said in a televised speech.
Yemen’s Houthis have been attacking ships in the Red Sea region since November in what they say is a campaign of solidarity with Palestinians fighting Israel in Gaza.
“The Yemeni armed forces confirm they will continue to prevent Israeli navigation or any navigation heading to the ports of occupied Palestine in the Red and Arabian Seas, as well as in the Indian Ocean,” Sarea said on Wednesday.
Separately, British maritime security firm Ambrey said earlier on Wednesday that it was aware of an incident southwest of the port city of Aden, an area where the Houthis often target ships they say are linked to Israel or the United States.
The vessel reported an “explosion in the water” approximately 72 nautical miles east-southeast of Djibouti, an updated advisory from Ambrey said.
Houthi attacks have disrupted global shipping through the Suez Canal, forcing firms to re-route to longer and more expensive journeys around southern Africa. The United States and Britain have launched strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen.
Iraq hangs 11 convicted of ‘terrorism’: security, health sources
- Under Iraqi law, terrorism and murder offenses are punishable by death, and execution decrees must be signed by the president
- A security source in Iraq’s southern Dhi Qar province told AFP that 11 “terrorists from the Daesh group” were executed by hanging at a prison in Nasiriyah
NASIRIYAH, Iraq: Iraqi authorities have executed at least 11 people convicted of “terrorism” this week, security and health sources said Wednesday, with rights group Amnesty International condemning an “alarming lack of transparency.”
Under Iraqi law, terrorism and murder offenses are punishable by death, and execution decrees must be signed by the president.
A security source in Iraq’s southern Dhi Qar province told AFP that 11 “terrorists from the Daesh group” were executed by hanging at a prison in the city of Nasiriyah, “under the supervision of a justice ministry team.”
A local medical source confirmed that the health department had received the bodies of 11 executed people.
They were hanged on Monday “under Article 4 of the anti-terrorism law,” the source added, requesting anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue.
All 11 were from Salahaddin province and the bodies of seven had been returned to their families, the medical official said.
Iraqi courts have handed down hundreds of death and life sentences in recent years for people convicted of membership in “a terrorist group,” an offense that carries capital punishment regardless of whether the defendant had been an active fighter.
Iraq has been criticized for trials denounced by rights groups as hasty, with confessions sometimes obtained under torture.
Amnesty in a statement on Wednesday condemned the latest hangings for “overly broad and vague terrorism charges.”
It said a total of 13 men were executed on Monday, including 11 who had been “convicted on the basis of their affiliation to the so-called Daesh armed group.”
The two others, arrested in 2008, “were convicted of terrorism-related offenses under the Penal Code after a grossly unfair trial,” Amnesty said citing their lawyer.
