- Title: BELGIUM: Survivors of migrant boat tragedy file complaint against Belgian army
- Date: 26th November 2013
- Summary: BRUSSELS, BELGIUM (NOVEMBER 26, 2013) (REUTERS) NEWS CONFERENCE BY THE INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION FOR HUMAN RIGHTS (FIDH) IN PROGRESS NEWS CONFERENCE SPEAKERS LISTENING TO JOURNALIST JOURNALISTS LISTENING TO SPEAKERS FIDH LAWYER VERONIQUE VAN DER PLANCKE SHOWING BOAT ROUTE ON A SATELLITE PICTURE
- Embargoed: 11th December 2013 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Belgium
- Country: Belgium
- Topics: Disasters,Politics
- Reuters ID: LVA3RQDJ00RB1RX0TBNN06KIBVEE
- Story Text: Survivors of a 2011 boat tragedy in the Mediterranean that killed 63 African migrants file a complaint against the Belgian army for failing to respond to their desperate calls of help.
Backed by a coalition of NGOs, three survivors of a 2011 migrant boat tragedy filed a complained on Tuesday (November 26) against the Belgian army for failing to respond to their calls of help as they tried to flee from then war-torn Libya.
63 people were left to die in the tragedy after the boat drifted for two weeks in the Mediterranean sae when its engine failed.
Katie Booth, who heads the migrants' rights department at the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH), said they had evidence suggesting one of the ships that had ignored the distress calls by the migrant boat was Belgian and part of a NATO fleet deployed in the area to enforce an UN-backed embargo against former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's regime.
"Today, we've launched a complaint against the Belgian army because we have evidence in our possession that suggests that it was a Belgian boat that came across the migrants in this case and that failed to provide them the assistance. We know that a Belgian boat was present and we know that that Belgian boat had the equipment to receive distress calls, which were launched every four hours for a period of ten days, while these migrants were left adrift and when 63 of them, those onboard, perished," Booth said on the sidelines of a news conference in Brussels.
Speakers at the news conference said survivors heard French language was spoken onboard a passing-by warship that had the character 'M' and a '9' painted on its hull. They said this could indicate the boat was Belgian mine-hunter Narcis, which carries the registration number M923.
Although the boat was under NATO command, Booth said the NGOs' legal team decided to target the individual countries and not NATO.
"Our legal strategy is to prevent states being able to hide one behind the other, being able to hide behind NATO. For NATO to say 'it's not NATO, it's the states themselves' and it's for that reason that we've lodged complaints against not only Belgium but France, Italy and Spain and that we've made request for information under freedom of information laws in the UK, the United States and Canada," Booth said.
The legal complaint follows an investigation by the Council of Europe into the tragedy which concluded institutional and legal failures had led to the avoidable death of the migrants.
The rubber dinghy, packed with 72 people, left Libya on March 27, 2011. After running out of fuel, it drifted off the coast for two weeks while most of those on board died of starvation and thirst, before floating back to Libya, leaving only nine survivors. The boat sent repeated distress signals, but received no help although ships under NATO command were in the area.
The military alliance confirmed it had received a general notice from Italian authorities about a small boat in difficulty but denied any contact had been made between NATO and the distressed boat.
Thousands of migrants tried to reach Europe from north Africa in 2011, many of them fleeing the turmoil of Arab Spring uprisings aboard small, flimsy, overloaded boats. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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