European Union-financed Libyans endanger refugees, rescuers

This 10 May 2017 video is called Libyan Coast Guard puts refugees and rescuers in danger.

“They brought the people on board without life jackets. That is extremely dangerous. What happens there is unacceptable.”

Captain Ruben Lampart

He has no good word for the action of the Libyan coast guard on the Mediterranean. Ruben Lampart is the captain of Sea Watch lifeboat that was almost collided on purpose by Libyans yesterday. “Those people have seriously endangered us and themselves, and we’re lucky we’re still alive.”

The coast guard attacked to intercept a boat with migrants. According to a spokesman [of one of many governments in Libya], the Libyans were bothered during their work by Sea Watch. “They wanted to bring the migrants to Italy because Libya would not be safe.”

Dear Mr Spokesman of one of the various governments in the bloody civil war in Libya: Libya IS not safe. Ever since NATO started its ‘humanitarian’ regime change war in 2011, Libya became a country of massive bloodshed, torture, ruined healthcare, and the worst child abuse in the world.

The Libyan mission is supported by the European Union with money, equipment and training. At an EU summit in early February, the member states agreed to work closely with the Libyans …

The precedent was the EU-Turkey [anti-refugee] deal … The problem for the EU is that there is big chaos in Libya, which still enables migrants to travel to Italy. There are three governments fighting for power, the EU recognizes one of these. …

To make it even more problematic: the Libyans turn out not to have a strategy to curb the migrant stream. EU officials told Reuters news agency that at the end of last month. …

More than 1150 people drowned or went missing [in the first four months of 2017].

The approximately 500 people aboard the ship intercepted yesterday were mostly from Morocco and Bangladesh. “The latter are a completely new group of migrants that originated in Libya,” says [NOS] correspondent Zoutberg. “The Bengalis are now the third most numerous category of migrants who try to cross.”

Zoutberg makes it look as if Moroccans and Bangladeshis now suddenly appear out of nowhere in Libya. However, before the NATO war started in 2011, Libya was the richest country in Africa. That attracted many immigrant workers: eg, from Morocco and other North African countries, European countries like Croatia, from sub-Saharan Africa, and Bangladesh. When the war started, racist and xenophobic propaganda by NATO’s Libyan allies depicted immigrant workers as supposedly ‘Gaddafi regime mercenaries’. That led to torture and other violence against them. Ever since, these immigrant workers try to flee NATO’s ‘new’ Libya.

The group has been taken to the naval base in Tripoli by the coast guard. According to Sea Watch, the entire operation was illegal because the migrants had to be brought to a safe port from international waters. Libya can not provide safety, the rescuers say. They want the EU to change its migration policy in the Mediterranean.