EUROPE-MIGRANTS/LIBYA-AT SEA Libya faces "major difficulties" in crackdown on migrant smugglers

Record ID: 165431

  • Title: EUROPE-MIGRANTS/LIBYA-AT SEA Libya faces "major difficulties" in crackdown on migrant smugglers
  • Date: 28th May 2015
  • Summary: TRIPOLI, LIBYA (MAY 28, 2015) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF COAST GUARD BOATS PREPARING TO HEAD OUT TO PATROL THE SEA FOR ILLEGAL MIGRANTS VARIOUS OF A COAST GUARD CARRYING A RIFLE COAST GUARD DRIVING A BOAT OUT TO SEA VARIOUS OF COAST GUARD CARRYING A RIFLE ON BOARD A BOAT AT SEA COAST GUARD CAPTAIN SPEAKING ON THE RADIO (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) LIBYAN COAT GUARD OFFICIAL, ABDEL HADI MOHAMMED, SAYING: "There are many difficulties and challenges, some of which we can handle and others we can't handle. We have major difficulties such as limited patrols and we don't have night vision tools, and we have difficulties in the number of the migrants right now. There are a lot of them at sea." VARIOUS OF COAST GUARD CAPTAIN CHECKING THE RADAR VARIOUS OF COAST GUARD OFFICIAL TALKING WITH A COLLEAGUE VARIOUS OF LOCATION WHERE MIGRANTS ARE OFTEN SPOTTED VARIOUS OF COAST GUARD ON BOARD A BOAT VARIOUS OF LIBYAN FLAG ON BOAT
  • Embargoed: 12th June 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Belgium
  • City:
  • Country: Belgium
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA65BMQZ0ZPLURLVM9SQTSWRVYD
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Libya is ill-equipped to deal with the mounting number of illegal migrants that are using its territory as a launching ground for their journey to Europe, officials have said.
    On a patrol mission to hunt for people smugglers off the country's territorial waters on Thursday (May 28), coast guard officials said they faced an impossible task.
    "There are many difficulties and challenges, some of which we can handle and others we can't handle. We have major difficulties such as limited patrols and we don't have night vision tools, and we have difficulties in the number of the migrants right now. There are a lot of them at sea," said coast guard official Abdel Hadi Mohammed.
    Chaos and civil war since NATO warplanes helped topple dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 have turned the North African country into the main 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 centres. But officials say they have no room to hold them, no way of fighting smugglers and no hope of guarding vast desert frontiers to prevent thousands more people trying to reach the sea.
    The de facto government in Tripoli has said that Europe cannot halt the deadly traffic of African migrants across the Mediterranean unless it helps the Libyan authorities cope.
    But 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.
    United Nations Libya mediator Bernardino Leon warned on Thursday that the country was heading for disaster.
    "The country is running out of time. Libya is on the verge of economic and financial collapse, is facing huge security threats because of the civil war but also, I would say even more important today, because of Da'esh (ISIL) threat," Leon said from Brussels, using the Arabic name for Islamic State.
    After 800 migrants drowned in a shipwreck last month, European leaders agreed at an emergency summit to strengthen naval patrols off the Libyan coast to fight the smugglers.
    But the executive director of Frontex, Fabrize Leggeri, said the border control agency had not reached Libyan waters yet.
    "I extended the operational areas, so down to the south. I can say that approximately the southern limit of Triton operational area is approximately the southern limit of the Maltese search and rescue zone. But that means that we are approximately 80 nautical miles from the Libyan shore, so we are not directly in Libya," he said on Thursday.
    More than 170,000 migrants successfully crossed the Mediterranean from Libya last year, and more than 3,000 drowned at sea. The International Organisation for Migration forecasts the number attempting the journey - and the death toll - could both increase by several times this year.
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