The humanitarian aid group Doctors Without Border (MSF) has called on the European Union (EU) and its member states to immediately suspend financial and material support to the Libyan Coast Guard that deliberately endangered the lives of hundreds of people seeking safety.
In a statement on Wednesday, MSF said its team witnessed a pushback by the EU-funded Libyan Coast Guard in international waters last Friday.
Despite MSF’s offer to provide assistance and bring the people to a place of safety, Maltese authorities and Frontex coordinated with a Libyan Coast Guard patrol vessel to intercept and forcibly return over 100 people to Libya, the aid group explained.
It added that the following day, another Libyan Coast Guard patrol vessel aggressively obstructed MSF rescue operations for over two hours, putting at risk the lives of 146 people in distress on a wooden boat in international waters.
“MSF calls on the EU and its member states to immediately suspend financial and material support to the Libyan Coast Guard and stop intentionally fueling the forced returns of people to Libya,” the group said in the statement.
“How long will the EU leaders continue to actively fuel horrific human right abuses at its borders?” asked MSF search and rescue representative Juan Matias Gil.
“Not only must the EU and its member states immediately stop all support to the Libyan Coast Guard, but it must also investigate the responsibility of their coastal states, in this case Malta, and its border agency, Frontex, in the unlawful pushbacks occurring almost daily in the central Mediterranean Sea, thereby making them complicit in grave human rights violations,” he said.
Gil noted that over the weekend of March 16-17, MSF team on board the rescue vessel Geo Barents witnessed two violent incidents involving the EU funded Libyan Coast Guard that deliberately endangered the lives of hundreds of people seeking safety.
Human Rights Watch’s associate Europe and Central Asia director, Judith Sunderland, had earlier said that “recent incidents show how wrong it is for EU countries to entrust the lives of those in need of rescue to Libyan coast guard forces when there are safer alternatives.”
Sunderland also said the “EU should ensure that its vessels carry out robust search-and-rescue operations in international waters close to Libya, where most shipwrecks occur, and, where possible, Italy should direct vessels from the EU and nongovernmental groups to take the lead on rescues, instead of Libyan vessels.”
