HUNDREDS OF AFRICAN MIGRANTS RESCUED BY SPAIN
New prime minister takes in 629, including 134 minors, from rescue boat after Italy and Malta close their doors
Spain yesterday offered to take 629 migrants on a rescue ship drifting in the Mediterranean after Italy and Malta refused to let it dock.
The Aquarius picked up the migrants, including 123 unaccompanied minors, 11 other children and seven pregnant women, from inflatable boats near Libya at the weekend.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who took office little more than a week ago, has instructed that the boat be admitted to Valencia, his office said.
Matteo Salvini, the head of Italy’s far-right League party who became Interior Minister this month, blocked the ship at the weekend. The rescue vessel is operated by SOS Mediterranee and Doctors without Borders.
“Saving lives at sea is a duty but transforming Italy into an enormous refugee camp is not,” Mr Salvini said on Facebook yesterday. “Italy is done bowing its head and obeying. This time there’s someone saying no.”
Photos from SOS Mediterranee showed hundreds of Africans huddled on board, including a girl wrapped in a blanket in the arms of a rescue worker.
“People are in distress, running out of provisions and need help quickly,” said the UN refugee agency’s special envoy, Vincent Cochetel. “Broader issues such as who has responsibility and how these responsibilities can best be shared should be looked at later.”
SOS Mediterranee said the ship had enough supplies to feed the people for at least one day before Spain stepped in.
Italy has had to deal with hundreds of thousands of migrants who passed through Libya to reach Europe in recent years.
EU law requires asylum seekers to register in the first safe country they reach but frontline nations including Italy and Malta say the load should be shared.
“This is not an inhumane act,” said Transport Minister Danilo Toninelli, in charge of Italy’s ports and coastguard. “It’s common sense. We ask that all of Europe assume responsibility for such a delicate and important issue as is immigration.”
The European Commission had urged action from Italy.
“We are talking about people,” commission spokesman Margaritis Schinas said. “The priority of the Italian and Maltese should be ensuring these people receive the care they need.”
Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat on Sunday said Italian leader Giuseppe Conte should have taken the migrants.
“We are concerned at Italian authorities’ directions given to Aquarius on high seas. They manifestly go against international rules and risk creating a dangerous situation for all those involved,” he said on Twitter.
By law, it would have been difficult for Italy to refuse the boat a safe haven, as its own coastguard co-ordinated the rescues, picking up more than 280 migrants in its vessels before transferring them to the Aquarius.
Mr Salvini has told another charity ship, the Sea Watch 3, which is patrolling off the Libyan coast, that it may not be allowed to dock in Italy. “Malta is not acting, France rejects them and Europe does not care,” he said. “I’ve had enough.”
The Sea Watch did not have migrants on board, a spokesman said, adding that Mr Salvini was “making a point at the cost of people in distress”.
The US yesterday added its own sanctions to those imposed by the UN last week on six men linked to migrant trafficking from Libya, including two Libyan government officials accused of being masterminds.
Abd Al Rahman Milad, commander of a Libyan coastguard unit at Zawiya, 30 kilometres from Tripoli, and Mohamed Koshlaf, commander of security at the town’s refinery, were involved in mistreating migrants and sinking migrant boats operated by rival smugglers, the US Treasury said.
“Milad and other coastguard members have been directly involved in the sinking of migrant boats using firearms, some reportedly in an attempt to undermine the smuggling business of Koshlaf’s competitors,” the Treasury said.
“Milad’s unit has reportedly confiscated the boat engines of smugglers who did not pay Milad, leaving them stranded at sea.”
Both officials are accused of mistreating migrants at sea and in local detention centres.
“A member of Milad’s local coastguard unit has been filmed using a bullwhip on migrants on a small rubber dinghy,” the Treasury said.
The US report, after a similar UN report that was issued on Friday, makes grim reading for EU and Italian officials, who had pinned their hopes on tackling Libyan people-smuggling by supporting the coastguard.
An agreement signed between Italy and Libya’s UN-backed Government of National Accord in February last year promised funding and training for the Libyan coastguard, with EU money for migrant reception centres.
Instead, UN and US experts say the government employs officials who are masterminding the people-smuggling networks.
“These brutal smuggling groups have tortured, robbed, and enslaved migrants seeking a better life. The United States is isolating these callous individuals from the US financial system,” said Sigal Mandelker, undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence.
The UN was equally scathing about the activities of the two officials, who were sanctioned with two other Libyans and two Libya-based Eritreans.
One of the sanctioned men, Ahman Al Dabbashi, led a militia with ties to ISIS that was involved in fierce fighting with rival groups around Zawiya for control of the migrant trade, UN investigators said.
“Al Dabbashi is currently active around Zawiya, after violent clashes broke out with other militia and rival smuggling organisations around the coastal area in October 2017, resulting in over 30 deaths, including civilians,” the UN report said.
As Italy’s new government takes a tougher line on migration, closing its ports to boats carrying migrants, its options for tackling smugglers in Libya are fast diminishing.
The US sanctions make it an offence to have financial dealings with any of the six sanctioned men, meaning that Italy might have to rethink its support for the Libyan coastguard service.
The sanctioned smugglers have transported many of the 600,000 migrants who arrived in Italy over the past four years, with the International Organisation for Migration estimating that 20,000 drowned in the attempt.
The US sanctions highlight the failure of the Government of National Accord, installed in Tripoli in March 2016, to get a grip on migrant smuggling gangs.
With no security forces of its own, it has been unable to control either migrant smuggling or its own capital, which is held by rival militias who fight periodic battles for control of key districts.
The UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, said the impetus for sanctions was footage broadcast by CNN in November that the news channel said showed slave auctions of migrants in west Libya.
“We were all horrified by pictures of human beings for sale in Libya last year,” Mr Guterres said on Friday.
“I welcome the Security Council’s decision to sanction six traffickers and smugglers. There must be accountability for exploitation and human rights abuses.”
Soon after CNN broadcast the footage last year, the government set up a committee and promised an investigation. To date, no such investigation has been reported and no one has been charged.
The chaos in western Libya is a stark contrast to the east, where the government’s rival, the House of Representatives
The sanctioned men have transported many of the 600,000 migrants who arrived in Italy over the past four years
parliament, holds sway from the town of Tobruk.
The Libyan National Army loyal to the parliament, commanded by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, has largely vanquished militias in the east, and is now battling to seize the last militia holdout in the coastal town of Derna.
The anarchy in west Libya is an obstacle not just to hopes of tackling migrant smuggling, but to ending the civil war. Emmanuel Macron, the French President, brokered an agreement to hold elections on May 29 but some diplomats say a fair poll will be almost impossible while western Libya is controlled by rival warlords.