BARCELONA: A group of non-governmental organizations dedicated to rescuing migrants in the central Mediterranean is accusing the European island nation of Malta of coordinating the return of around 500 people to Libya where they were subsequently imprisoned, in violation of international maritime law.
The group of migrants, which included 55 children and pregnant women, had been trying to reach Europe on May 23 aboard a rusty iron fishing vessel when they reported to Alarm Phone — a hotline for migrants in distress — that they were adrift and taking in water, the NGOs said in a statement.
People smugglers have increasingly packed migrants and refugees into old and dangerous fishing vessels that set out from Libya to Italy or Malta.
Migrants aboard the vessel shared their GPS location with Alarm Phone showing they were in international waters in an area of the Mediterranean where Malta is responsible for search and rescue.
Despite repeated requests for help sent to Maltese authorities, the migrants were reportedly taken back to Benghazi in eastern Libya three days later, Alarm Phone said, citing relatives of the migrants.
“Instead of bringing people who had tried to escape from the extreme violence people on the move experience in Libya to a place of safety, … (the Rescue Coordination Center of) Malta — decided to organize a mass pushback by proxy at sea, forcing 500 people across 330km into a Libyan prison,” read the joint statement issued by Alarm Phone, Sea-Watch, Mediterranea Saving Humans and EMERGENCY on Monday.
The Maltese Armed Forces responsible for search and rescue operations did not immediately respond to the AP’s questions sent by email or answer the phone.
The International Organization for Migration and the UN Refugee Agency told the Associated Press that 485 people were reportedly brought back to Benghazi by a vessel belonging to the self-styled Libyan National Army, a force in the east of the country led by military commander Khalifa Haftar. The UN agencies could not immediately confirm it was the same group of migrants reported by Alarm Phone.
The vessel that intercepted the 485 migrants, the Tareq Bin Zeyad, is named after a militia led by Haftar’s son. In a report last year, Amnesty International accused the Tareq Bin Zeyad militia of subjecting “thousands of Libyans and migrants to brutal and relentless abuses since 2016.”
In their statement Monday, the NGOs said the Tareq Bin Zeyad had been spotted navigating in “peculiar patterns” close to the last known location of the boat in distress on May 24, suggesting the militia was looking for it.
Separately, eastern Libyan forces said over the weekend they had intercepted a large vessel carrying over 800 migrants, including entire families and children. The migrants were brought back to Libyan shores in Benghazi on May 26, three days after their vessel broke down in the Mediterranean.
In a video posted by the same east-based forces on May 27 showing the disembarkation of migrants intercepted at sea, one migrant interviewed says that the vessel broke down off Maltese shores, and that the Libyan navy rushed to rescue them. The AP could not independently confirm if this was the same vessel that had reached out to the NGOs near Malta.
Both the IOM and the UNHCR have repeatedly condemned the return of migrants and refugees to Libya, saying the lawless nation should not be considered a safe place for disembarkation as required by international maritime law.
Migrants returned to Libya are subject to arbitrary detention, extortion, torture and enforced disappearances by militias and human traffickers, in what a UN panel of experts said may amount to crimes against humanity.
Human rights organizations have long accused Malta of a policy of “non-assistance” and of colluding with Libyan forces, who are trained and funded by the European Union, to take back the migrants.
Alarm Phone said it was contacted by relatives of some of the intercepted migrants on May 26 to denounce their detention in Benghazi.
“The people fled wars and prisons in Syria, and now, unfortunately, they have been returned to Libya,” the statement read, quoting one relative.
Rescue groups say Malta coordinated the return of 500 migrants to Libya instead of saving them
https://arab.news/yvf2j
Rescue groups say Malta coordinated the return of 500 migrants to Libya instead of saving them
- The migrants, who included 55 children and several pregnant women, had been trying to reach Europe on May 23 aboard a fishing vessel
- Three days later they were reportedly disembarked in eastern Libya and sent to a detention center in Benghazi
Lebanon rescuer picks up ‘pieces’ of father after Israel strike
Israel struck the center, the main civil defense facility in the eastern Baalbek area, while nearly 20 rescuers were still inside
DOURIS, Lebanon: Suzanne Karkaba and her father Ali were both civil defense rescuers whose job was to save the injured and recover the dead in Lebanon’s war.
When an Israeli strike killed him on Thursday and it was his turn to be rescued, there wasn’t much left. She had to identify him by his fingers.
Karkaba then rushed back to the bombed civil defense center to search for her fellow first responders under the rubble.
Israel struck the center, the main civil defense facility in the eastern Baalbek area, while nearly 20 rescuers were still inside, said Samir Chakia, a local official with the agency.
At least 14 civil defense workers were killed, he said.
“My dad was sleeping here with them. He helped people and recovered bodies to return them to their families... But now it’s my turn to pick up the pieces of my dad,” Karkaba told AFP with tears in her eyes.
Unlike many first-responder facilities previously targeted during the war, this facility in Douris, on the edge of Baalbek city, was state-run and had no political affiliation.
Israel’s military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Friday morning, dozens of rescuers and residents were still rummaging through the wreckage of the center. Two excavators pulled broken slabs of concrete, twisted metal bars and red tiles.
Wearing her civil defense uniform at the scene, Karkaba said she had been working around-the-clock since Israel ramped up its air raids on Lebanon’s east in late September.
“I don’t know who to grieve anymore, the (center’s) chief, my father, or my friends of 10 years,” Karkaba said, her braided hair flowing in the wind.
“I don’t have the heart to leave the center, to leave the smell of my father... I’ve lost a part of my soul.”
Beginning on September 23, Israel escalated its air raids mainly on Hezbollah strongholds in east and south Lebanon, as well as south Beirut after nearly a year of cross-border exchanges of fire.
A week later Israel sent in ground troops to southern Lebanon.
More than 150 rescuers, most of them affiliated with Hezbollah and its allies, have been killed in more than a year of clashes, according to health ministry figures from late October.
Friday morning, rescuers in Douris were still pulling body parts from the rubble, strewn with dozens of paper documents, while Lebanese army troops stood guard near the site.
Civil defense worker Mahmoud Issa was among those searching for friends in the rubble.
“Does it get worse than this kind of strike against rescue teams and medics? We are among the first to... save people. But now, we are targets,” he said.
On Thursday, Lebanon’s health ministry said more than 40 people had been killed in Israeli strikes on the country’s south and east.
The ministry reported two deadly Israeli raids on emergency facilities in less than two hours that day: the one near Baalbek, and another on the south that killed four Hezbollah-affiliated paramedics.
The ministry urged the international community to “put an end to these dangerous violations.”
More than 3,400 people have been killed in Lebanon since the clashes began last year, according to the ministry, the majority of them since late September.
Iran backs Lebanon in ceasefire talks, seeks end to ‘problems’
- World powers say Lebanon ceasefire must be based on UN Security Council Resolution 1701
- Israel demands the freedom to act should Hezbollah violate any agreement, which Lebanon has rejected
BEIRUT: Iran backs any decision taken by Lebanon in talks to secure a ceasefire with Israel, a senior Iranian official said on Friday, signalling Tehran wants to see an end to a conflict that has dealt heavy blows to its Lebanese ally Hezbollah.
Israel launched airstrikes in the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs of Beirut, flattening buildings for a fourth consecutive day. Israel has stepped up its bombardment of the area this week, an escalation that has coincided with signs of movement in US-led diplomacy toward a ceasefire.
Two senior Lebanese political sources told Reuters that the US ambassador to Lebanon had presented a draft ceasefire proposal to Lebanon’s parliament speaker Nabih Berri the previous day. Berri is endorsed by Hezbollah to negotiate and met the senior Iranian official Ali Larijani on Friday.
Asked at a news conference whether he had come to Beirut to undermine the US truce plan, Larijani said: “We are not looking to sabotage anything. We are after a solution to the problems.”
“We support in all circumstances the Lebanese government. Those who are disrupting are Netanyahu and his people,” Larijani added, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Hezbollah was founded by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in 1982, and has been armed and financed by Tehran.
A senior diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, assessed that more time was needed to get a ceasefire done but was hopeful it could be achieved.
The outgoing US administration appears keen to secure a ceasefire in Lebanon, even as efforts to end Israel’s related war in the Gaza Strip appear totally adrift.
World powers say a Lebanon ceasefire must be based on UN Security Council Resolution 1701 which ended a previous 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel. Its terms require Hezbollah to move weapons and fighters north of the Litani river, which runs some 20 km (30 miles) north of the border.
Israel demands the freedom to act should Hezbollah violate any agreement, which Lebanon has rejected.
In a meeting with Larijani, Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati urged support for Lebanon’s position on implementing 1701 and called this a priority, along with halting the “Israeli aggression,” a statement from his office said.
Larijani stressed “that Iran supports any decision taken by the government, especially resolution 1701,” the statement said.
Israel launched its ground and air offensive against Hezbollah in late September after almost a year of cross-border hostilities in parallel with the Gaza war. It says it aims to secure the return home of tens of thousands of Israelis, forced to evacuate from northern Israel under Hezbollah fire.
Israel’s campaign has forced more than 1 million Lebanese to flee their homes, igniting a humanitarian crisis.
FLATTENED BUILDINGS
It has dealt Hezbollah serious blows, killing its leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and other commanders. Hezbollah has kept up rocket attacks into Israel and its fighters have been battling Israeli troops in the south.
On Friday, Israeli airstrikes flattened five more buildings in Beirut’s southern suburbs known as Dahiyeh. One of them was located near one of Beirut’s busiest traffic junctions, Tayouneh, in an area where Dahiyeh meets other parts of Beirut.
The sound of an incoming missile could be heard in footage showing the airstrike near Tayouneh. The targeted building turned into a cloud of rubble and debris which billowed into the adjacent Horsh Beirut, the city’s main park.
The Israeli military said its fighter jets attacked munitions warehouses, a headquarters and other Hezbollah infrastructure. Ahead of the latest airstrikes, the Israeli military issued a warning on social media identifying buildings.
The European Union strongly condemned the killing of 12 paramedics in an Israeli strike near Baalbek in the Bekaa Valley on Thursday, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said.
“Attacks on health care workers and facilities are a grave violation of international humanitarian law,” he wrote on X.
On Thursday, Eli Cohen, Israel’s energy minister and a member of its security cabinet, told Reuters prospects for a ceasefire were the most promising since the conflict began.
The Washington Post reported that Netanyahu was rushing to advance a Lebanon ceasefire with the aim of delivering an early foreign policy win to his ally US President-elect Donald Trump.
According to Lebanon’s health ministry, Israeli attacks have killed at least 3,386 people through Wednesday since Oct. 7, 2023, the vast majority of them since late September. It does not distinguish between civilian casualties and fighters.
Hezbollah attacks have killed about 100 civilians and soldiers in northern Israel, the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and southern Lebanon over the last year, according to Israel.
French anti-terrorism prosecutor to appeal against Lebanese militant’s release
- Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, a former head of the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Brigade, would be released on Dec. 6
- Requests for Abdallah’s release have been rejected and annulled multiple times
PARIS: The office of France’s anti-terrorism prosecutor said on Friday it would appeal against a French court’s decision to grant the release of a Lebanese militant jailed for attacks on US and Israeli diplomats in France in the early 1980s.
PNAT said Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, a former head of the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Brigade, would be released on Dec. 6 under the court’s decision on condition that he leave France and not return.
Abdallah was given a life sentence in 1987 for his role in the murders of US diplomat Charles Ray in Paris and Israeli diplomat Yacov Barsimantov in 1982, and in the attempted murder of US Consul General Robert Homme in Strasbourg in 1984.
Representatives for the embassies of the United States and Israel, as well as the Ministry of Justice, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Requests for Abdallah’s release have been rejected and annulled multiple times, including in 2003, 2012 and 2014.
A French student who was arrested and detained in Tunisia returns to Paris
- Victor Dupont, a Ph.D. at Aix-Marseille University’s Institute of Research and Study on the Arab and Islamic Worlds, arrived at Charles de Gaulle Airport on Friday
- Dupont, who researches social movements, youth unemployment and Tunisia’s 2011 revolution, was one of three French nationals arrested on Oct. 19
PARIS: A French student detained for weeks in Tunisia returned to Paris on Friday after weeks of top-level diplomatic discussions.
Victor Dupont, a 27-year-old completing a Ph.D. at Aix-Marseille University’s Institute of Research and Study on the Arab and Islamic Worlds, arrived at Charles de Gaulle Airport on Friday afternoon, 27 days after he was arrested in Tunis.
“Obviously, we welcome this outcome for him and, most of all, we welcome that he is able to reunite with his loved ones here in France,” French Foreign Ministry spokesman Christophe Lemoine said.
He announced the release at a ministry news briefing on Friday, saying that Dupont was freed Tuesday from prison and returned on Friday back to France.
Dupont, who researches social movements, youth unemployment and Tunisia’s 2011 revolution, was one of three French nationals arrested on Oct. 19. Authorities in recent years have arrested journalists, activists and opposition figures, but Dupont’s arrest garnered international attention and condemnation because of his nationality and because he wasn’t known as a critic of the government.
A support committee set up to advocate for Dupont’s release told The Associated Press in October that Dupont and several friends were detained in front of Dupont’s home, then taken to a police station for questioning. Dupont was later taken alone into custody and taken to appear in military court in the city of Le Kef.
The arrest provoked concerns about the safety and security of foreigners in Tunisia, where rights and freedoms have gradually been curtailed under President Kais Saied.
Dupont’s supporters, both at his university and in associations representing academics who work in the Middle East and North Africa, said that his research didn’t pose any security risks and called the charges unfounded.
In a letter to Saied and Tunisia’s Ministry of Higher Educations, associations representing French, Italian and British academics who work in the region said that Tunisia’s government had approved Dupont’s research and that the allegations against him “lack both founding and credibility.”
“We therefore condemn the extraordinary use of the military court system,” they wrote on Nov. 12.
Saied has harnessed populist anger to win two terms as president of Tunisia and reversed many of the gains that were made when the country became the first to topple a longtime dictator in 2011 during the regional uprisings that became known as the Arab Spring.
Tunisia and France have maintained close political and economic ties since Tunisia became independent after 75 years of being a French protectorate. France is Tunisia’s top trade partner, home to a large Tunisian diaspora and a key interlocutor in managing migration from North Africa to Europe.
A French diplomatic official not authorized to speak publicly about the arrest told The Associated Press in late October that officials were in contact with Tunisian authorities about the case. Another diplomatic official with knowledge of the matter said on Thursday that French President Emmanuel Macron had recently spoken to Saied twice about the case and said that it was the subject of regular calls between top level diplomats.
The others arrested along with Dupont were previously released.
Israeli strikes at Damascus suburb, Syrian state news agency says
- Explosions were reported earlier on Friday in the vicinity of Damascus
- “Israeli aggression targets Mazzeh area in Damascus,” SANA said in a news flash
DUBAI: Israel carried out attacks on the Mazzeh suburb of Damascus on Friday, Syrian state news agency SANA said, a day after a wave of deadly strikes on what Israel said were militant targets in the Syrian capital.
Explosions were reported earlier on Friday in the vicinity of Damascus.
“Israeli aggression targets Mazzeh area in Damascus,” SANA said in a news flash. It gave no other details.
There was no immediate comment from Israel.
Commanders in Lebanon’s Hezbollah armed group and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards based in Syria have been known to reside in Mazzeh, according to residents who fled after recent strikes that killed some key figures in the groups.
Mazzeh’s high-rise blocks have been used by the authorities in the past to house leaders of Palestinian factions including Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
Fifteen people were killed on Thursday in Israeli strikes on residential buildings in Mazzeh and Qudsaya suburbs, state media reported. Israel said the attacks targeted military sites and the headquarters of Islamic Jihad.
Israel has been carrying out strikes against Iran-linked targets in Syria for years but has ramped up such raids since the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel that sparked the Gaza war.
Separately, the Israeli military said it had attacked on Thursday transit routes on the Syrian-Lebanese border that were used to transfer weapons to Hezbollah.
Syrian state media reported that an Israeli attack completely destroyed a bridge in the area of Qusayr in southwest of Syria’s Homs near the border with northern Lebanon.
