Migrants waiting to be rescued by a ship run by SOS Mediterranee and Doctors Without Borders in the Mediterranean Sea off the Libyan coast this month.
ROME — The medical aid group Doctors Without Borders said Saturday that it was temporarily suspending the operations of its ship used to rescue migrants because of what it said were threats from Libya's Coast Guard.
The crews of the Libyan vessels have become more aggressive in patrolling the coasts where human traffickers launch boats crowded with migrants desperate to reach Europe.
The aid group said the rescue coordination center operated by Italy's Coast Guard had informed it on Friday that the Libyan threats posed a security risk. The group added that the Libyan authorities declared their own rescue area, extending into international waters, the same day.
Doctors Without Borders said that its medical crew would keep working from a ship operated by another aid group but that its own vessel, Prudence, would not be involved in rescues.
The Italian government agreed last month to send a naval mission to assist the Libyan Coast Guard with patrols aimed at stopping human smuggling. Hundreds of thousands of rescued asylum seekers, many of them fleeing poverty in Africa, have been brought to safety in Italian ports in recent years.
The government also has pressed rescue groups to sign on to rules that would forbid them from entering Libyan waters to save migrants without specific authorization and require them to agree that armed Italian judicial authorities may board their ships.
Italy is requiring groups operating rescue ships to subscribe to the rules or risk not being allowed to dock in Italian ports. Doctors Without Borders has refused to endorse the rules, while some other humanitarian groups have given their approval.
Critics of the new policies say they could put lives at risk by delaying rescues in Libyan waters. They also contend that if the Libyan Coast Guard blocks smugglers’ boats, migrants will be returned to inhumane conditions, including beatings and forced labor, in Libyan detention centers.
“If humanitarian ships are pushed out of the Mediterranean, there will be fewer ships ready to aid persons before they drown,” the president of the Italian branch of Doctors Without Borders, Loris De Filippi, said in a statement. “And whoever doesn’t drown will be intercepted and brought back to Libya, which we know to be a place of absent legality, arbitrary detention and extreme violence.”
A Spanish humanitarian group, Proactiva Open Arms, said the Libyan Coast Guard ordered its rescue ship to move north and fired warning shots recently when the vessel was involved in search-and-rescue work outside of Libyan territory.
Humanitarian groups have had ships monitoring the Mediterranean Sea outside of Libya’s territorial waters to help rescue migrants from smugglers’ boats in distress. The Italian Coast Guard coordinates the rescues, including those conducted by naval vessels from other European countries.
Anti-migrant sentiment has been rising in Italy, where newcomers from Africa and the Middle East are being blamed for crimes.
(The New York Times)
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