CAIRO: A rubber boat carrying dozens of Europe-bound migrants sank off the coast of Libya and at least 55 people drowned, including women and children, the UN migration agency said Wednesday. It was the latest tragedy in this part of the Mediterranean Sea, a key route for migrants.
The International Organization for Migration said the disaster took place on Tuesday. The boat was carrying at least 60 migrants and had set off from the coastal town of Garabouli, east of Libya’s capital, Tripoli.
The agency said five migrants survived the shipwreck and were brought back to shore by the Libyan coast guard. It was not immediately clear what happened to the vessel.
Safa Msehli, an IOM spokesperson, said the boat capsized a short while after leaving Garabouli. She said the Libyan coast guard has so far retrieved the bodies of nine men and a child.
The five survivors include four men — three Pakistanis and one Egyptian — and a Syrian child, Msehli told The Associated Press.
The was the latest tragedy in the central Mediterranean Sea, a key route for migrants. The IOM said at least 537 people have drowned or gone missing in migrant disasters in the Mediterranean off Libya so far this year, while over 4,300 have been intercepted and returned to shore.
Earlier this month, the IOM’s Missing Migrants Project said that the first quarter of this year was the deadliest in the Central Mediterranean since 2017, with at least 441 documented deaths.
That number, however, is likely “an undercount of the true number of lives lost,” the agency said, adding that it was still investigating several other unreported shipwrecks where the fate of more than 300 people onboard remain unclear.
In 2022, at least 529 migrants were reported dead and 848 people were missing off Libya, while over 24,680 were intercepted and returned to the chaos-hit North African country, according to the IOM.
Libya has in recent years emerged as the dominant transit point for migrants from Africa and the Middle East trying to make it to Europe. The oil-rich country plunged into chaos following a NATO-backed uprising that toppled and killed longtime autocrat Muammar Qaddafi in 2011.
Human traffickers in recent years have benefited from the chaos in Libya, smuggling in migrants across the country’s lengthy borders with six nations. The migrants are crowded into ill-equipped vessels, including rubber boats, and set off on risky sea voyages.
Those who are intercepted and returned to Libya are held in government-run detention centers rife with abuses, including forced labor, beatings, rapes and torture — practices that amount to crimes against humanity, according to UN-commissioned investigators.
The abuse often accompanies efforts to extort money from families of those held, before the migrants are allowed to leave Libya on traffickers’ boats.
UN says at least 55 migrants drowned in shipwreck off Libya
https://arab.news/54gbh
UN says at least 55 migrants drowned in shipwreck off Libya
- Boat was carrying at least 60 Europe-bound migrants and had set off from the town of Garabouli
- Human traffickers in recent years have benefited from the chaos in Libya
UN’s top court opens Myanmar Rohingya genocide case
- The Gambia filed a case against Myanmar at the UN’s top court in 2019
- Verdict expected to impact Israel’s genocide case over war on Gaza
DHAKA: The International Court of Justice on Monday opened a landmark case accusing Myanmar of genocide against its mostly Muslim Rohingya minority.
The Gambia filed a case against Myanmar at the UN’s top court in 2019, two years after a military offensive forced hundreds of thousands of Rohingya from their homes into neighboring Bangladesh.
The hearings will last three weeks and conclude on Jan. 29.
“The ICJ must secure justice for the persecuted Rohingya. This process should not take much longer, as we all know that justice delayed is justice denied,” said Asma Begum, who has been living in the Kutupalong refugee camp in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar district since 2017.
A mostly Muslim ethnic minority, the Rohingya have lived for centuries in Myanmar’s western Rakhine state but were stripped of their citizenship in the 1980s and have faced systemic persecution ever since.
In 2017 alone, some 750,000 of them fled military atrocities and crossed to Bangladesh, in what the UN has called a textbook case of ethnic cleansing by Myanmar.
Today, about 1.3 million Rohingya shelter in 33 camps in Cox’s Bazar, turning the coastal district into the world’s largest refugee settlement.
“We experienced horrific acts such as arson, killings and rape in 2017, and fled to Bangladesh,” Begum told Arab News.
“I believe the ICJ verdict will pave the way for our repatriation to our homeland. The world should not forget us.”
A UN fact-finding mission has concluded that the Myanmar 2017 offensive included “genocidal acts” — an accusation rejected by Myanmar, which said it was a “clearance operation” against militants.
Now, there is hope for justice and a new future for those who have been displaced for years.
“We also have the right to live with dignity. I want to return to my homeland and live the rest of my life in my ancestral land. My children will reconnect with their roots and be able to build their own future,” said Syed Ahmed, who fled Myanmar in 2017 and has since been raising his four children in the Kutupalong camp.
“Despite the delay, I am optimistic that the perpetrators will be held accountable through the ICJ verdict. It will set a strong precedent for the world.”
The Myanmar trial is the first genocide case in more than a decade to be taken up by the ICJ. The outcome will also impact the genocide case that Israel is facing over its war on Gaza.
“The momentum of this case at the ICJ will send a strong message to all those (places) around the world where crimes against humanity have been committed,” Nur Khan, a Bangladeshi lawyer and human rights activist, told Arab News.
“The ICJ will play a significant role in ensuring justice regarding accusations of genocide in other parts of the world, such as the genocide and crimes against humanity committed by Israel against the people of Gaza.”
