with videoThe Libyan coastguard fired several shots in the Mediterranean last Friday at a group of aid workers from the Red Cross and SOS Méditerranée, and a group of migrants they had just rescued from the water. The Libyans did so, it seems, from a ship they received from Italy three weeks ago. It is a further escalation of the naval battle between aid agencies, Libya and Italy.
Marlies van Leeuwen
Latest update:
5:24 PM
The rescuers sailed on the aid ship Ocean Viking in the Mediterranean Sea and responded to a distress call from a small boat on Friday. That boat was sailing in international waters, near the Libyan coast. The rescuers managed to pull eleven people out of the water with their small lifeboats. On the way back to the Ocean Viking, according to the Red Cross, a Libyan Coast Guard patrol boat approached at high speed and gunshots were fired. The bullets landed less than 100 meters from the crew and the people just rescued, including five children.
Although the rescuers and castaways managed to reach the great Ocean Viking unscathed, there was considerable panic. The Red Cross shared images of the confrontation. The humanitarian organization states that it is already the third time this year that the Ocean Viking has been hit by such actions during a rescue operation.
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Both the Red Cross and SOS Méditerranée are calling on governments to guarantee the safety of aid workers. They speak of an “extremely worrying situation” in the Mediterranean, where the number of refugees who die or go missing is rising “again and again”. “It is becoming increasingly dangerous for rescue workers to do their job. That can only lead to even more deaths.
A cat-and-mouse game has been going on for years off the Libyan coast. Boats full of refugees and migrants departing from the Libyan coast almost every day who want to go to Europe. Their boats are rarely seaworthy and usually quickly run into problems. The aid ships patrol just outside Libyan territorial waters and wait there for reports of boats in distress. If they take migrants on board, they then sail to Italy and ask the authorities there for ‘a safe haven’. They do not return the migrants to Libya, because that is not a safe country according to the aid ships and international investigations. Migrants are imprisoned, mistreated and extorted.
‘Ocean Viking, go the fuck away’
But the Libyan coastguard, which receives financial and material support from European countries, also sails in the area. When they come across boats with migrants, they take them on board and sail back to Libya. This is usually against the will of the migrants. The coast guard locks them up, after which they have to buy their freedom and then try to cross again, some migrants told this site last year.
This site was aboard the Ocean Viking for several weeks last year. Even then the ship sailed off the Libyan coast and the Libyan coastguard showed up a few times during a rescue operation. The Libyans announced on the ship’s radio that the Ocean Viking had to leave (‘Go the fuck away’), but did not fire at that time.
According to Italian journalist Sergio Scandura, the shots were probably fired from one of the two ships the Libyans received from Italy three weeks ago. The Italians have been supporting the Libyan coastguard for years. The video footage of the incident shows that the ship is of the same class as the two boats given by the Italians, the boat also appears to bear the same markings.
Ports getting further and further away
The Ocean Viking arrived on Tuesday in the Italian port of Civitavecchia (above Rome), where the migrants were disembarked, registered and received by the Italian authorities.
The Italians have also been involved in a battle with the aid organizations for years. Former Interior Minister Salvini once called the aid ships “the taxi service for migrants.” In the past, the Italians have banned several auxiliary ships from sailing. In recent months, they no longer assign the ships ports in Sicily, but much further north in Italy, so that the ships can sail back and forth to Libya less often.
The aid organizations state that they are not a ‘taxi service’, but are doing their humanitarian duty: rescuing people at sea.
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