CAIRO: Libyan officials Wednesday allowed 51 migrants to disembark in the capital after spending hours on a coast guard vessel off Tripoli, the UN migration agency said.
The UN mission in Libya, meanwhile, voiced concerns about the escalation of fighting between rival forces over Tripoli in the past few days, and the reported release of over 400 prisoners in a western town recently taken by Tripoli-allied militias.
The migrants were rescued Tuesday night by a commercial ship from Malta’s search-and-rescue zone and handed over to Libya’s coast guard, the International Organization for Migration said. At least five bodies were also retrieved, and seven other migrants were reported missing, it said. The agency first put the number of survivors at 47, then corrected itself and made it 51.
They had been stuck on a coast guard ship overnight before being allowed to disembark in Tripoli, where they were taken to a detention center by local authorities, the IOM said.
Safa Mselhi, a spokesperson for IOM, said the migrants were Eritreans and Sudanese, with eight women and three children among them.
Migrants seeking better lives in Europe often land in Libyan detention centers after perilous journeys at the mercy of traffickers who hold them for ransom from their families.
“We reiterate that people rescued at sea should not be returned to unsafe ports,” the UN migration agency said. “An alternative to disembarkation in Libya must be found urgently.”
Alarm Phone, a crisis hotline for migrants in need of rescue at sea, said the migrants were “illegally abducted” in Malta’s search-and-rescue zone, blaming Maltese authorities for the five deaths and the return of the others to “war, rape and torture” in Libya.
Al least 277 migrants were not allowed to disembark in Tripoli for safety concerns, the IOM said, citing Libyan officials without elaborating.
Those migrants, hungry and exhausted after 72 hours at sea, remained stuck on a crowded coast guard ship after being denied entry to Tripoli. Heavy bombardment of the port area prevented them from disembarking.
The fighting for Tripoli has been raging for over a year between military commander Khalifa Haftar’s forces, which are allied with a rival government based in eastern Libya, and an array of militias in the west loosely linked to the UN-supported authorities in Tripoli.
The fighting has escalated in recent weeks as the UN appealed for a cease-fire so authorities could turn their focus to fighting the coronavirus pandemic, which could potentially devastate war-torn Libya, where a decade-long conflict has ravaged key infrastructure and created dire medical shortages.
Libya has confirmed 26 cases of the virus and one fatality.
The UN support mission in Libya said Wednesday it was concerned about attacks on civilians in the western town of Sorman by Tripoli-allied forces and the release of over 400 jail inmates there “without adequate legal proceedings or vetting.”
It also said it was alarmed by reports of “desecration of corpses, retribution, including looting, robberies and torching of public and private properties” in in Sorman and other western towns taken by Tripoli-allied forces.
The UN support mission also condemned “indiscriminate bombardment” by Haftar forces of civilian neighborhoods in Tripoli.
Haftar’s forces, which control much of the country, launched the offensive on Tripoli last April. It has led to a military stalemate, killed hundreds of civilians and displaced more than 200,000 people, according to the UN
Libya has been in turmoil since 2011, when a civil war toppled longtime dictator Muammar Qaddafi, who was later killed.