http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2015/May-25/299177-unable-to-halt-migrants-tripoli-demands-help.ashx
Middle East
May. 25, 2015 | 12:22 AM
Unable to halt migrants, Tripoli demands help
TRIPOLI: Europe cannot halt the deadly traffic of African migrants
across the Mediterranean unless it ends a boycott of forces that have
seized power in the Libyan capital and helps authorities there cope,
the de facto government in Tripoli said. Chaos and civil war since
NATO warplanes helped topple Moammar Gadhafi in 2011 have turned the
North African country into the launching point for human traffickers
smuggling tens of thousands of people across the Mediterranean.
Libya’s rulers have rounded up thousands of Europe-bound African
migrants in makeshift detention centers. But officials say they have
no room to hold the migrants, no way of fighting smugglers and no hope
of guarding vast desert frontiers to prevent thousands more people
trying to reach the sea.
“We tell you: Come and talk and cooperate with us, the national
salvation government,” Mohammad al-Ghirani, foreign minister in the
government based in the capital Tripoli, told Reuters in his office
overlooking the Mediterranean.
“If Europe doesn’t cooperate, then after [some] years Europe will be
completely black. Europe will change from a white Europe to an African
Europe,” he said.
The lack of any unified authority in Libya has prevented virtually all
international cooperation to respond to the migration crisis. An EU
team helping to train and advise Libyan border guards evacuated the
country.
Nearly all European countries have withdrawn their embassies
fromTripoli and refuse to recognize Ghirani’s government, which took
control of the capital in heavy fighting last year.
Instead, they recognize a rump government now based in the east.
After 800 migrants drowned in the shipwreck of a fishing boat last
month, European leaders agreed at an emergency summit to strengthen
naval patrols off the Libyan coast to fight the smugglers.
But Ghirani said such efforts were pointless unless Europe began
cooperating with his government’s forces on the ground. “Now we cannot
do anything. The state is weak. We need logistics, intelligence,
aircraft.”
He said Libya had detained more than 16,000 mostly African migrants in
overcrowded detention centers. Some were being housed in abandoned
schools and public buildings.
At a detention center in Gharboulli east of Tripoli, almost 100 people
shared one cell with a single toilet. Men were segregated from women,
some of whom were pregnant, lying on mattresses next to each other on
the floor.
Detainees are allowed to leave the crowded cell only briefly to meet
visitors. “This place is not fit for human beings. We don’t get fresh
air in the cell and many are sick,” said 24-year old Eritrean Mussie
Tolde, who has been held for two months since the Libyan navy stopped
the crowded boat on which he tried to reach Italy.
Authorities struggle to provide medical care for detained migrants,
many of whom arrive exhausted or undernourished from weeks in
overloaded trucks driving across the Sahara, said the center’s deputy
director, Faraj Abdullah.
“A doctor comes for a day or two, but it’s not enough.”
Another detention center visited by Reuters in the city of Misrata
further east was so full even the floor outside the cells was packed
with migrants. Hundreds shared one toilet. Shouting broke out when one
person got up to get some air.
Since an alliance of rebels seized Tripoli last year and the
internationally recognized leadership fled to the east, Libya has had
two rival governments, fighting a civil war. Both field “armies”
formed mainly of loose coalitions of rebel groups that fought against
Gadhafi, funding themselves out of Libya’s oil revenue. Some parts of
the country are also in the hands of Islamist groups, including
fighters who proclaim allegiance to ISIS, the group that controls much
of Syria and Iraq.
The chaos has given free rein to people-smugglers, who have set up a
vast trafficking trade, charging thousands of dollars to bring
migrants across the desert from sub-Saharan Africa and pack them into
unsafe boats for the trip across the sea.
More than 170,000 migrants successfully crossed theMediterranean from
Libya last year, and more than 3,000 drowned at sea.
The International Organization for Migration forecasts the number
attempting the journey – and the death toll – could both increase by
several times this year.
Col. Mohammad Abu Breeda, assistant director of the illegal migration
department at the Tripoli government’s Interior Ministry, said he had
8,000 men to cover the vast country and lacked vehicles and weapons to
guard its desert borders.
“Our possibilities are very, very limited. We cannot do anything
without support from the European Union,” he said. “The southern
borders are open without any monitoring ... The smugglers have
weapons, better capabilities.”
A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Daily
Star on May 25, 2015, on page 6.
Received on Mon May 25 2015 - 22:00:58 EDT