"Accomplices of tragedy": EU leaders urged not to return migrants to Libya

Leaders of the European Union "make the Mediterranean an aquatic cemetery through a deliberate policy" with an agreement making Libya responsible for migrants trying to cross the sea on the mainland, said a group of more than 50 organizations.

Oxfam, Human Rights Watch and Médecins Sans Frontières were among the signatories of a letter claiming that they "let themselves go to complicit in the tragedy unfolding before their eyes".

Under the agreement, Italy and the EU agreed to provide Libyan coast guards with money and technical support in exchange for stopping migrants trying to reach Europe from Libya.

The organizations urged leaders to stop the return of migrants to Libya, to support search and rescue operations and to adopt rapid and regular landing devices.

At least 5,300 migrants have died since the agreement – described as inhuman by the United Nations – was accepted in February 2017, and thousands more are currently suffering in Libyan detention camps, said Oxfam.

"EU countries are making the Mediterranean an aquatic cemetery by deliberate policy," said Raphael Shilhav, Oxfam's EU Migration Policy Advisor.

The joint letter states: "For more than six months, European governments have tried – and failed – to agree on a system allowing survivors to be safely landed when they reach the European coast. "

He accuses EU governments of "engaging in long and arduous debates" on where ships can land and which countries should welcome their pbadengers, while people are left behind. sea, often for weeks.

"They must allow search and rescue vessels to dock in their harbors, land rescued people and return to sea to save their lives, in accordance with international law," Shilhav said. "All attempts to prevent their work will inevitably lead to more deaths and will go against the humanitarian values ​​of Europe," he says.

The groups also highlighted the danger to thousands of detainees in Libya. According to this report, persons forcibly returned not only risk being arbitrarily detained, but are also "abused, tortured or sold as slaves".

It is estimated that around 6,500 migrants are currently being held in official places of detention. The UN has warned that human traffickers could handle it, despite the EU's willingness to take tough action on human trafficking.

Unofficial centers, some of which are run by armed groups, host many more people.

Moussa, a 17-year-old Malian boy, told Oxfam that he had been intercepted by the Libyan coastguard and taken to a detention center in Tripoli.

He said, "There were a lot of people in the prison. They asked me for more money, but I did not have any more money. They hit me on the soles of the feet, calves and knees, but I kept saying that I could not contact anyone because I did not have any more family in Mali.

"I saw a young Gambian boy beaten to death in front of my eyes because he had dared to rebel and respond to them."