20/04/2023 – 09/05/2023

• On April 29, 2023 Italy’s Rescue Coordination Centre ordered a merchant vessel to return 30 rescued individuals to Libya. On April 27, 2023 Alarm Phone reported two boats in distress after escaping from Libya. The first was carrying 50 people, while the second counted about 30 to 35. In both cases, civil fleet carried out SAR, due to the lack of state actors willing to intervene.
• On April 24, 2023 Alarm Phone reported numerous shipwrecks off Italy and Libya, dozens of bodies at the shores of Tunisia and 26 ongoing distress situations at sea. More than 100 bodieswere recovered off the coasts of Libya and Tunisia: by 25 April the bodies of at least 57 migrants were found off the coast of western Libya after several boats sank in the Mediterranean. On 25 April, 2023 Italian officials stated that more than 2,200 migrants departing from North Africa had been rescued and brought to a reception centre on the island of Lampedusa over just 24 hours.
• On May 4, 2023 Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni received Libyan military officer Khalifa Haftar in Rome. The meeting focused on cooperation in migration flows management and the stabilization of Libya as well as North Africa.

04/04/2023 – 20/04/2023

• On April 11, the Italian Coast Guard rescued a vessel in distress with around 400 migrants onboard that had departed from Libya and had been adrift between Italy and Malta for two days. On April 3, SOS Mediterranee rescued and disembarked in the Italian port of Salerno 92 migrants, including 47 unaccompanied minors, that had departed from Libya.
• On April 4, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk today demanded accountability for human rights violations in Libya after a UN-backed fact-finding mission’s final report documented a “wide array of war crimes and crimes against humanity” against Libyans and migrants in the country.

07/03/2023 – 04/04/2023

• On March 27, the UN Independent Fact Finding Mission on Libya released its final report where they concluded that “there are grounds to believe a wide array of war crimes and crimes against humanity have been committed against Libyans and migrants stuck in Libya by State security forces and armed militia groups”.  
• According to IOM Libya, in the period between March 5 and 11, 403 migrants were intercepted and returned to Libya. 
• On March 25, Sea-Watch witnessed the attack by carried out by Libyan coastguard on a boat in distress carrying around 84 people off Libya and the crew of SOS Méditerranée who was approaching to carry out search and rescue. The Libyan coast guard approached dangerously close, threatening the crew & shooting in the air. On March 12, 30 people died in the Central Mediterranean Sea after Italian, Maltese, and Libyan authorities failed to intervene despite the several distress alerts sent by Alarm Phone and Sea-Watch. When the boat capsized, only 17 people were rescued alive by a merchant vessel. In response to the shipwreck, the European Commission promised more operational support to Libya in terms of boat provision to the Libyan coast guard. On March 11, the Italian coast guard rescued a boat in distress in the Italian SAR area, that had left Libya carrying more than 500 people. The search and rescue operation was carried out more than 24 hours after the first distress alert sent by Alarm Phone. 
• On March 8, IOM director general Antonio Vitorino said that according to official numbers around 5000 migrants are currently being held in Libyan detention centres. However, this figure might just be the tip of the iceberg, given the possible existence of non-official detention centers to which neither the IOM nor the UNHCR have any kind of knowledge and access. Vitorino called the existence of these facilities “unacceptable” and said the agency has always made it clear that detention is “not a solution.” In a statement published on March 9, 15 human rights organisations warned of the deteriorating situation of migrants, asylum seekers and refugees in Libya. The statement mentions the terrible conditions in Libyan detention centres and the cycle of violence against migrants fostered by the collaboration between the EU, the EU member states and Libyan authorities. Finally, the document also points at the shrinking of civic space, produced by the increasing criminalisation of activists and the crackdown on civil society organisations. 

05/10/2022 – 02/11/2022

• 64 people were intercepted by the Libyan Coast Guard and pulled back after they had fled from Khoms. Another group of approximately 90 people was pulled-back by Libyan authorities from the Maltese SAR zone.
• The so-called Libyan Coast Guard threatened to shoot at the Sea Watch airplane if it did not leave “Libyan territory”. However, the incident did not take place on Libyan territory, as the airplane was flying over the Maltese SAR zone.
• On 7 October 2022, 15 migrants died off the coast of Sabratha due to what seems to have been an armed confrontation between rival militias. Someone from the militias shot a flare at the migrants’ boat which caught fire and everyone on board died. However, the dynamics are not yet clear and caused some international reactions, including from the UN who asked for an investigation into the event.
• The OHCHR published the new report Nowhere but back: Assisted return, reintegration and the human rights protection of migrants in Libya highlighting the key gaps in human rights protection for migrants who are assisted to return from Libya to countries of origin.
• The World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) published the report That was the last time I saw my brother: Extrajudicial and unlawful killings in Libya

21/09/2022 – 05/10/2022

• So far in 2022, 16,502 people were pulled back to Libya.  

03/08/2022 – 21/09/2022

• 70 people are currently in distress at sea and their boat capsized off the coast of Sabratha.  
• On 9 September 2022, the Libyan Coast Guard pulled back 109 people who were in distress in the Central Mediterranean, off the coast of Khoms.  
• On 5 September 2022, Alarm Phone reported about a distress case of 21 people off the coasts of Libya. Authorities were informed but did not intervene. A merchant vessel later on found an empty fiberglass boat in the location. We don’t know if the people were pulled back, or if a shipwreck took place.  
• In the end of August 2022, a shipwreck occurred off the coast of Libya. 6 people survived, 2 bodies were found and 19 people remain missing.  
• In mid-August 2022, 20 bodies were found in the desert at the border between Libya and Sudan.  
• A rare footage of the kidnapping of a young migrant circulated on social media in the beginning of September. The boy kidnapped is Mazen Adam, a 15-year-old refugee from Darfur who lives in Libya with his dad and brothers and is registered as a refugee with the UNHCR. Later his dad was kidnapped too. Events like this one are systematic in Libya, and the video shows once more the constant violence, threats and risks that migrants and refugees are exposed to in the country.  

19/07/2022- 03/08/2022

• On 1 August 2022, Human Rights Watch and Border Forensics denounced how Frontex aerial surveillance facilitates forced returns of migrants to abuses in Libya.
• On 30 July 2022, according to Libya Review, the UN Security Council has demanded to Libyan authorities to close migrant detention centres.
• On 28 July 2022, 255 people, including women and children, were intercepted at sea by the Stabilisation Support Authority (SSA) and brought to SSA detention centres. So far in 2022, 11,946 migrants have been intercepted at sea and forcibly returned back to Libya.
• On 25 July 2022, about 100 people were pushed back to Libya by the commercial ship Vos Triton. Sea Watch heard the radio conversation of Vos Triton: the ship had rescued about 100 people, and 4 bodies, and handed them over to a boat of the so-called Libya Coast Guard who brought them back to Libya.
• On 24 July 2022, Alarm Phone reported about 22 people in distress of the Libyan coast. Despite authorities being informed no on intervened, and finally the people were rescued by local fishermen.
• A new body has emerged recently in Libya under the name of Stabilisation Support Authority (SSA) and is active in sea interception and migrants’ detention. The body is composed of different militias, and it seems to be receiving EU support as the already infamous Libyan Coast Guard. This new body is particularly feared for the brutality and violence it systematically uses both at sea and in detention centres. Unlike other equally violent anti-migrant bodies, the SSA “reports directly to Libya’s Tripoli-based presidential council and is not subject to EU and U.N. scrutiny intended to prevent rights abuses”. The detention centre it runs is located close to the city of Maya and has hosted about 1,800 people. Allegedly, the SSA has also been involved in the coordination between Frontex and Libyan naval authorities for sea interceptions.
• On 17 July 2022, the first technical meeting of the Libyan-Italian Mixed Military Committee took place for defining the training programs for the Libyan Coast Guard.

07/06/2022 – 27/06/2022

• On 26 June 2022, Alarm Phone reported about 2 boats in distress off Libyan coasts, one with approximately 100 people on board. Both of them were later intercepted and pulled back to Libya.   

• On 19 June 2022, Alarm Phone reported about a distress case of approximately 100 people in distress in the Central Mediterranean. Three Italian vessels were nearby but they did not intervene. After 16 hours from the first distress signal, the people were intercepted and pulled back by the Libyan Coast Guard.  
• 12 people were pushed back from Libyan authorities on 12 June 2022 after they left from Libya, and they finished the fuel off Zuwara.  
• On 10 June 2022, local authorities in the city of Kufra carried out a mass expulsion of people from Libya towards their countries of origin.  
• Mohamed Mahmoud Abdulaziz committed suicide in the detention centre of Ain Zara. He was detained in the Al-Mabani centre after the October 2021 raids in Gargaresh, managed to escape and went to the UNHCR headquarters to ask for protection. He was then detained in Ain Zara following the January 2022 violent raids and evictions by Libya forces outside the UNHCR building.  
• The IOM Libya denounced how there has been no progress in years concerning migration in the country. The IOM Head of mission denounced the systematic cycle of abuse migrants are subjected to in the country and the smuggling and trafficking rings are strong. He also denounced the blurred lines that exists between state institutions and armed groups.  

• EuroMed Rights’ member Cairo Institute for Human Rights together with other 17 CSOs, signed a statement asking for the renewal of the UN Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) mandate on Libya in the occasion of the 50th session of the Human Rights Council.  

For the period from June 2021 to May 2022, click here.