Merchant ships prevent migrants from reaching Europe. Patrick Kingsley's investigation published in the New York Tiimes is very interesting. The Panther, a merchant ship flying the German flag, does not deal with rescues at sea, but one day a few months ago the Libyan Coast Guard ordered him to divert the route, rescue 68 migrants in distress in the Mediterranean and bring them back to Libya.
The request that Panther honored was at least the third of that 11 January that the Libyans had made against a merchant ship. The Libyans could easily have alerted a nearby ship operated by a Spanish NGO. Apparently the Libyan authorities have managed to stem the phenomenon by no longer addressing requests for help to NGO ships. In this regard, some lawyers expert in the law of the sea argue that the new tactic is illegal, even if commercial ships such as the Panther must follow the instructions of the only recognized authorities in territorial waters, such as the Libyan Coast Guard.
NGOs, however, do not respect the indications of the authorities by bringing migrants to Europe, referring to the international refugee law, which prohibits handing over refugees to institutions / countries from where they fled.
After the Panther's arrival in Tripoli, Libyan soldiers boarded the ship and forcibly forced the migrants to follow them to a detention camp in the capital, Tripoli.
"We call them privatized pushbacks", he has declared Charles Heller, director of Forensic Oceanography, a research group investigating violations of migrants' rights in the Mediterranean. "Occur when merchant ships are used to save and return migrants to a country where their lives are at risk - such as Libya".
European governments, after the mass migration in 2015, often stopped NGOs sailing in the southern Mediterranean - such as the Spanish ship Open Arms - which systematically brought migrants to European ports. European navies and coast guards have largely withdrawn from the area, entrusting the Libyan Coast Guard with responsibility for search and rescue.
Now Europe has a new proxy: privately owned commercial ships. However, their use to combat the migratory phenomenon is harshly contested by supporters of the rights of migrants. A 1979 international convention on search and rescue requires merchant ships to obey the orders of the Coast Guard forces of the relevant country. "It is a clearly illegal policy“, Said Dr. Itamar Mann, maritime law expert at the University of Haifa in Israel. But commercial shipowners say that after rescuing migrants from drowning, their legal duty is to follow orders from the Libyan Coast Guard, as per a separate search and rescue convention signed in 1979. "What has been done is in compliance with the law "Said John Stawpert, representative of the International Chamber of Shipping, an association of shipowners.
However, between 2011 and 2018, only one commercial ship returned the migrants to Libya, according to research by the Forensic Oceanography Think-tank.
But since 2018 there have been around 30 cases in which migrants have been brought back to Libya, which involved around 1.800 migrants, according to data collected by The New York Times and Forensic Oceanography. But the real number is likely to be higher.
The use of commercial ships has increased in recent months, he said Anabel Montes Mier, chief of mission aboard the Open Arms. "These commercial ships follow orders"Said the lady Montes Mier.
"We, however, refuse to bring people back to unsafe places". NGOs say Libya's refusal to work with them has endangered more lives among migrants. The number of people reaching Italy has decreased by over 90% since 2017, as have deaths at sea which have halved. But the number of people who are drowning, in proportion to those trying to cross the sea, has increased sharply, from about 1 in 50 in 2017 to 1 in 20 in 2019, according to data compiled by the International Organization for migrations. The forced repatriation of migrants has also put many of them in real danger due to the ongoing civil war in Libya. In February, an air strike hit the pier used by the Panther to disembark migrants in Tripoli. Once on the ground, the migrants were imprisoned in detention camps run by some militias. Often these camps are found in areas under attack. Last July, a camp was bombed, killing 53 prisoners. In a lawless land that offers few rights to foreign workers, migrants are often tortured, raped, held for ransom, treated like slaves.
Steven, a 2018-year-old from South Sudan, said he was beaten by Libyan officials after being returned to Libya by a commercial ship in November XNUMX.
"Why did they save us and bring us back to Libya?Said Steven, who asked to be identified only by his name for fear of repercussions. "It was better to die on the ship."
Since 1951, international refugee law has stipulated that migrants must not be repatriated without the guarantee of due process from the countries from which they fled. But in cases where merchant ships are involved, migrants are often rescued in international waters, before reaching Europe's maritime borders, and EU authorities argue that migrants must be returned to Libya because Libya coordinates the search and rescue operations in these international waters, overlooking the national ones.
Today, although European navies have withdrawn from the area, their planes continue to direct the Libyan Coast Guard to migrant ships, according to records published by the investigation made by The Guardian. In March of last year, one of these military planes ordered a merchant ship to bring back a load of newly rescued migrants to Tripoli, without any intervention by the Libyan Coast Guard. The news was reported by the online magazine The Atavist.
In one of several recent telephone interviews, the commander Abdal Samad The Libyan Coast Guard said an Italian ship docked in Tripoli, once used as a command and control center for rescuing migrants, is often used by the Libyan Coast Guard to communicate with merchant ships, particularly when Libyan radios spoil. One of the most recent cases, he said, was the weekend in January, when Panther rescued 68 migrants from the southern Mediterranean.