A
lawsuit has been filed against Italy by seventeen Nigerian migrants who
survived a deadly sea crossing last year, for violating their rights by
supporting Libya’s efforts to return them to North Africa, their lawyers said
on Tuesday.
Legal advisor for the Global Legal Action Network, Violeta
Moreno-Lax, told reporters that the plaintiffs petitioned the European Court of
Human Rights last week. She was among four lawyers and several humanitarian
groups involved in the case.
The migrants, who were not identified, said Italy violated multiple
articles of the European Convention on Human Rights, including that people not
be subjected to torture, held in slavery, or have their lives put in danger.
The United Nations, rights groups and news organizations say
migrants face these conditions in Libya. According to Global Action Network, on
6 November 2017, the Libyan Coast Guard interfered with the efforts of the NGO
vessel Sea-Watch 3 to rescue 130 migrants from a sinking dinghy. At least
twenty of them died.
The Libyan vessel was donated by Italy a few months before. The
intervention was partly coordinated from Rome by the Maritime Rescue and
Coordination Centre (MRCC), an Italian Government agency. An Italian navy ship
was nearby, part of the Mare Sicuro operation which has operated in Libyan
territorial waters facilitating interceptions by the Coast Guard.
The Libyan Coast Guard ‘pulled back’ the survivors to Libya, where
they endured detention in inhumane conditions, beatings, extortion, starvation,
and rape. Two of the survivors were subsequently ‘sold’ and tortured with
electrocution. The two Nigerians said they were starved of even basic food and
healthcare, before returning to Nigeria with the International Organization for
Migration. All the plaintiffs were rescued at sea, but at least 20 migrants
drowned when a part of their rubber boat deflated. German humanitarian ship Sea
Watch 3 rescued 59 people that day and collected the body of a small child, all
of whom were brought to Italy.
The Libyan naval vessel, which had been donated by Italy and was
operated mainly by a crew trained by the EU, returned 47 to Libya. In a video
shot by Sea Watch, the Libyans are seen beating the migrants they intercepted
with a rope, and the vessel then speeds off with a man clinging to the side.
This is the first lawsuit to be filed against Italy for its decision
to back the Libyan Coast Guard. The country lost a case in the same court in
2012 for directly handing over migrants intercepted at sea to Libyan
authorities.
The legal process can take up to three years but should the migrants
win they can be awarded damages, and Italy would be forced to abandon its
policy of equipping, training and coordinating the Libyan Coast Guard,
Moreno-Lax said.
“Using the Libyan Coast Guard as a proxy to turn back migrant boats
is just a new way of camouflaging (Italy’s) strategy of fighting irregular
migration in the Mediterranean by trapping them in what the Italian Foreign
Ministry itself has qualified as ‘the hell’ of Libya,” Moreno-Lax said.
The lawsuit highlights a stand-off between humanitarian groups
seeking to save lives on the open seas and Italian authorities backed by the
European Union who are trying to stop people from making the dangerous crossing
in the first place. A spokesman for Italy’s Interior Ministry, which has
spearheaded the policy, had no immediate comment. Libyan naval spokesman Ayoub Qassem
said the coast guard does its job within the terms agreed with Italy.
“Regarding the abuse and violations against the migrants, these are
all considered as individual acts … We can’t say Libyan state institutions
commit these acts,” Qassem said. SEA CROSSINGS DOWN Italy has supplied Libya
with seven refurbished vessels so far, and three more have been promised, while
the EU has trained about 190 Libyan coastguards.
Italy is also coordinating communications with the Libyan Coast
Guard about possible boats in distress, according to court documents filed
recently in Sicily. Between 2014 and 2017, more than 600,000 migrants arrived
on Italian shores, but crossings have fallen dramatically since Italy and Libya
signed a memorandum of understanding aimed at stemming the migration flow in
February of last year.
During the first five months of this year, arrivals from Libya fell
more than 80 percent versus last year to 6,700 during, official data show. Over
the same period, the Libyan Coast Guard intercepted almost 6,000 migrants and
refugees. In 2017, the Libyans turned back almost 19,000.
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