CAIRO: Libya’s coast guard recovered dozens of bodies of Europe-bound migrants who perished at sea as search operations continued Friday, a day after up to 150 people, including women and children, went missing and were feared drowned after their boats capsized in the Mediterranean Sea.
A top UN official described Thursday’s shipwreck as “the worst Mediterranean tragedy” so far this year.
Also Friday, Libyan authorities transferred dozens of migrants rescued from the disaster to a detention center near Tripoli that was hit by an airstrike earlier this month despite UN objections to such a move, the UN refugee agency said.
The Anti-Illegal Immigration Agency in the capital, Tripoli, said that up to 350 migrants were on board the boats that capsized on Thursday off the coast of the Libyan town of Khoms, around 120 kilometers (75 miles) east of Tripoli.
The migrants include nationals from Eretria, Egypt, Sudan and Libya, the agency said.
Libyan officials said more than 130 migrants have been rescued since Thursday.
At least a dozen were taken to a hospital in Khoms while the rest were transferred to different detention centers, including Tajoura, located near the front lines of the fighting between rival Libyan factions. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief media.
Tajoura was hit by an airstrike on July 3 that killed more than 50 people and raised new concerns over the treatment of migrants in Libya.
Charlie Yaxley, a spokesman for the UN refugee agency, on Thursday objected to transfers of rescued migrants to Tajoura, saying, “this has to stop” and that the detention center should be closed.
“Our joint-call to close Tajoura detention center does not seem to be heard. This is putting intentionally the life of these people at risk,” Vincent Cochetel, the refugee agency’s special envoy for the Central Mediterranean tweeted on Friday.
After the NATO-backed uprising that toppled and killed longtime ruler Muammar Qaddafi in 2011, Libya became a major conduit for African migrants and refugees seeking a better life in Europe. Traffickers and armed groups have exploited Libya’s chaos since his overthrow, and have been implicated in widespread abuses of migrants, including torture and abduction for ransom.
Thursday’s shipwreck was “the worst Mediterranean tragedy” so far this year, said .N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi.
In January, some 117 died or went missing off Libya’s coast and around 65 people drowned after their boat sank off the coast of Tunisia in May.
At least 2,500 migrants have been detained in centers in and around Tripoli, where forces loyal to commander Khalifa Haftar are battling an array of militias loosely aligned with a UN-recognized government.
Haftar’s offensive — an attempt to seize Tripoli — started in April and has killed more than 1,000 people, mainly combatants but also civilians, the US said earlier this month.
The Tripoli-based government has blamed the Tajoura airstrike on Haftar’s forces, which have denied responsibility and accuse government-linked militias of storing weapons at the facility.
The UN refugee agency says 164 migrants died traveling from Libya to Europe since the start of the year, fewer than in previous years. But the agency says the journey is becoming more dangerous for those who attempt it, with one out of four perishing at sea before reaching Europe.
The UN’s death toll of 154 did not include those reported missing at sea Thursday.
Libya’s coast guard recovers dozens of bodies of migrants
Libya’s coast guard recovers dozens of bodies of migrants
- A top UN official described Thursday’s shipwreck as “the worst Mediterranean tragedy” so far this year
- The migrants include nationals from Eretria, Egypt, Sudan and Libya
Inaction over UAE’s role is prolonging ‘worst proxy war in the world,’ Sudan justice minister says
- Had international community characterized it as ‘military rebellion’ and countered Emirati sponsorship of ‘terrorist militia’ it would not have endured, he tells UN Human Rights Council
- He accuses paramilitary Rapid Support forces of ‘targeting basic infrastructure, strategic facilities and public services,’ and ‘atrocities beyond our capacity to describe’
NEW YORK CITY: Sudan’s justice minister on Wednesday blamed the prolongation of the near-three-year conflict in his country on what he described as the failure of the international community to properly label the war as a rebellion.
He also accused the UAE of sponsoring and arming a militia, the Rapid Support Forces, he said was responsible for widespread abuses.
“The war has outstayed its welcome and it should not have gone on for this long had the international community, and particularly the UN and its bodies, fulfilled their responsibility in rightly characterizing this military rebellion,” said Abdullah Mohammed Dirif, “and had they called a spade a spade and countered the Abu Dhabi government, which sponsored this terrorist militia and provided it with high-tech arms and provided it with mercenaries.”
Speaking during the high-level segment of the 61st session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, he warned that “the misleading characterization of this war has given a green light for the militia to keep its flagrant violations.”
The minister, who said he was speaking “on behalf of the government of Sudan and its people,” described the conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the RSF, which began in April 2023, as “one of the worst proxy wars in the world,” which had “targeted the very existence of Sudan and its people.”
The RSF has “continued its methodic targeting of basic infrastructure and strategic facilities and all public services,” Dirif said, adding that “the aim is to displace civilians against whom it has committed atrocities beyond our capacity to describe them.
“The violations and crimes of the militia are going unabated. Yesterday it invaded Moustahiliya region in northern Darfur. It targeted civilians, killed them. It looted. It scorched villages and cities.”
Sudan’s military was “conducting its constitutional responsibility by standing up to the militia, protecting the civilians, preserving the unity of the country and the rule of law,” he said, and it remains “committed to international humanitarian law and the rules governing military engagement, and taking into account proportionality principles in order to protect civilians.”
Khartoum remains “open to genuine efforts which aim to end the war and the rebellion” based on a road map presented by the president of the Transitional Sovereignty Council, and a peace initiative submitted by the prime minister to the UN Security Council on Dec. 22, he added.
Dirif stressed his government’s commitment to continued “cooperation and coordination with human rights mechanisms in Sudan,” including the presence of the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in the country and the UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Sudan.
“We recall, nationally, that achieving justice and redress to victims and ensuring impunity is a top priority for us,” he said, adding that authorities had made progress by investigating violations of national laws and international humanitarian laws.
He also underscored Sudan’s “commitment to continue facilitating and expediting delivery of humanitarian assistance to those affected by the war, including those under the control of the rebellious militia.”
Later, Sudan’s representative to the UN in Geneva exercised his right of reply and responded to prior remarks by the representative from the UAE.
“This is not a mere accusation, it is a well-known fact that is predicated on a number of evidence and documented proofs,” he said, referring to the UAE’s sponsorship of the RSF.
He cited in particular a report by a UN panel of experts on Sudan published on Jan. 15, 2024, which he described as “an official document of the Security Council” that referred to “lines of transferring weapons from Abu Dhabi International Airport” based on “clear-cut evidence.”
Other major international organizations and Sudan’s national commission of inquiry have provided further proof, he added, and Khartoum had submitted “a number of complaints, with proof, to the Security Council of the proven sabotage by the Abu Dhabi authority.”
The Sudanese representative continued: “It is paradoxical that the same authority that is sponsoring criminal militia, that the whole world is seeing and is attesting to its crimes, is now talking about peace in the Sudan. Peace is a noble value, that you have to be full of peace before you talk about it.
“The people of Sudan are only requesting this country stop sponsoring this criminal militia that is killing the innocent people in my country on a daily basis.”
The UAE has denied accusations that it provides military support to armed groups in Sudan, and says it supports efforts to achieve a peaceful resolution to the conflict.
