People smugglers are taking greater risks to ferry their human cargo toward Europe as Libya’s coast guard intercepts more and more boats carrying migrants, increasing the likelihood that those on board could die during the Mediterranean journeys, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said.
In a report released yesterday and titled Desperate Journeys, the agency said that even though the number of crossings and deaths has plunged compared to past years, the voyage is more deadly as a percentage of those who venture across.
At least 2,276 people died last year while trying to cross, or one death for every 42 arrivals, the report said.
For the year to date, it is 1,095 deaths, or one out of every 18 arrivals, while in June, the proportion hit one death for every seven arrivals, the agency said.
On the central Mediterranean route so far this year, there have been 10 separate incidents in which 50 or more people died — most after departing from Libya — and seven of those incidents have been since June alone, UNHCR said.
“The reason the traffic has become more deadly is that the traffickers are taking more risk, because there is more surveillance exercised by the Libyan coast guards,” UNHCR Special Envoy for the Central Mediterranean Vincent Cochetel said. “They are trying to cut the costs: It costs them more to keep those people here longer in their warehouses, under captivity.”
Libyan authorities intercepted or rescued 18,400 people between August last year and July this year — a 38-percent increase from the same period in 2016 and last year, the report said, adding that arrivals by sea from Libya to Europe plummeted 82 percent, to 30,800 in the latest period.
The agency said a growing worry these days is deaths on land by people trying to get to Libya in the first place, or getting stuck in squalid, overcrowded detention centers, where many get returned there after failing to cross by sea to Europe.
“The problems after disembarkation [is that] those people are sent back to detention centers, and many disappear,” Cochetel said. “Many are sold to militias, and to traffickers and people employing them without paying them.”
He said the drop in departures means that traffickers attempt to “monetize their investment, which means they have to exploit more people. That results in more cases of slavery, forced labor, prostitution of those people — because they [smugglers] want to make money on those people.”
Would-be workers and migrants are still pouring into Libya: Some are fleeing injustice, abuse or autocrats in their home countries further south in Africa. Others are looking for work in the oil industry or agriculture.
“I think you have more deaths on land,” Cochetel said, referring to treks across the desert in Sudan, Algeria, Chad and Niger. “Many people in Libya are reporting having seen people dead in the desert on the way to Libya.”
In Libya, instability continues even seven years after the fall of former Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi.
French medical aid group Doctors Without Borders on Friday said that fighting between rival militias in Tripoli has endangered the lives of people trapped there and worsened humanitarian needs — especially at migrant detention centers.
Cochetel said Europe — where some countries have shown “appalling” squabbles about who would take in rescue ships carrying migrants — should look at the root causes of such journeys.
European populations need to shun anti-migrant rhetoric and realize that figures are down sharply, and migrant flows are clearly manageable at current levels, he said.
“Europe has to show the lead, has to be exemplary in its response, but it’s quite clear that it’s already too late when the people are in Libya,” he said. “We need to work downstream in country of first asylum, in country of origin, and that takes time.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
‘DELUSIONAL’: Targeting the families of Hamas’ leaders would not push the group to change its position or to give up its demands for Palestinians, Ismail Haniyeh said Israeli aircraft on Wednesday killed three sons of Hamas’ top political leader in the Gaza Strip, striking high-stakes targets at a time when Israel is holding delicate ceasefire negotiations with the militant group. Hamas said four of the leader’s grandchildren were also killed. Ismail Haniyeh’s sons are among the highest-profile figures to be killed in the war so far. Israel said they were Hamas operatives, and Haniyeh accused Israel of acting in “the spirit of revenge and murder.” The deaths threatened to strain the internationally mediated ceasefire talks, which appeared to gain steam in recent days even as the sides remain far
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The