On the fifth anniversary of the signing of the memorandum, humanitarian organizations denounce the human rights violations suffered by refugees in the North African country
On the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the signing of the memorandum between the governments of Rome and Tripoli, which includes millions in aid to the authorities of the North African country to intercept migrants leaving its coasts, a hundred local and international NGOs demanded this Wednesday the end of this agreement. According to humanitarian organizations, including Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and Emergency, the Libyan Coast Guard commits continuous violations of the human rights of displaced persons and refugees, while the humanitarian corridors to get these people out of the North African country are “seriously insufficient”. Italy has allocated 32 million euros to finance the Libyan Coast Guard, much of it provided by the European Union.
“The Italian Government must immediately revoke the memorandum. It is the only practicable decision in the face of the structural impossibility of bringing significant improvements to the living conditions of migrants and refugees in Libya and of guaranteeing them adequate access to protection,” the NGOs claim in a note. They also ask the United Nations agencies present in the North African country, where they have repeatedly denounced the abuses suffered by the displaced, considering them crimes against humanity, to join the call to end the agreement between Tripoli and Rome. Renewed in 2020 for another three years, this memorandum blessed by Brussels has meant that more than 83,000 people have been intercepted by the Libyan coastguard when they tried to cross the central Mediterranean to reach Europe.
It is very common for migrants, when they are rescued by one of the humanitarian ships operating in the Sicilian Channel, to report all kinds of torture suffered in Libya. “They put shackles on our ankles and wrists,” said Kouassi (not his real name), a 23-year-old displaced person from the Ivory Coast rescued by the ‘Geo Barents’, the ship chartered by MSF. “I have a lot of scars on my ankles. I spent three months in shackles. They beat us, beat us with wooden and metal bars. I still have scars on my back from knife cuts. It was a prison in the desert, an unfinished house that we had been sold to. We were about ten in the room. They took everything we were carrying and asked our parents for half a million CFA francs (about 800 euros) for our release.”
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