With the European Union seeking to enlist Libya in the fight against irregular migration, migration observatory Fortress Europe is calling on the EU to suspend any form of migration cooperation with Malta’s southern neighbour.

Efforts to involve Libya in next year’s Frontex sea patrols, it says, should be halted until the country provides guarantees on the human rights of migrants who will be returned to Libya once the patrols begin.

Without such guarantees, the organisation claims, Libyan involvement in the fight against irregular migration could “send thousands of refugees to their deaths”.

In a damning report published at the end of October, Escape from Tripoli – Report on the Conditions of Migrants in Transit in Libya, the NGO highlights cases of torture and rape at Libyan detention centres, deportations to the Sahara, collective refoulements, racist attacks in Tripoli and the murder of migrants at police stations.

The organisation provides first hand accounts and testimonies from migrants witnessing instances of each such abuse, including a collective refoulement at sea by the Maltese authorities.

Making matters worse, the organisation reports, are EU plans for sea patrols by Frontex, the EU’s border control agency, between Malta and Libya to become a permanent fixture as from next year.

As such, refoulements at sea are to become the norm and migrant boats are to be turned back to Libya, should the country bend to the EU’s will and agree to cooperate in the area.

The majority of migrants arriving in Malta and Sicily depart from the western Libyan coast between Zuwarah and Misratah. Should the plans for Libyan involvement in migration be realised, the NGO observes, returns of intercepted migrants would spell out the denial of rights and abuses “tolerated by the European Union, which, in name of the war against illegal immigration, will send thousands of refugees to their deaths”.

Collective refoulements at sea, the organisation states, are practiced despite being forbidden by international law. The organisation presents six testimonies from between 2005 and 2006 in which at least 600 people were sent back to Libya.

It gives examples of instances in which Maltese, Italian, Libyan and Tunisian authorities escorted migrant boats back to Libyan territorial waters, where they were handed over to the Libyan coast guard.

The organisation cites a statement from an Eritrean migrant, in which it is claimed the Maltese authorities carried out such a refoulement.

“We embarked in Zuwarah in July 2005. There were 264 of us, on an old ship, at night. After 10 hours at sea, the engine broke down. We spent five days in the sea, in a damaged ship. Then, a military ship bearing a Maltese flag rescued us at around 17:00. There were women and children on board as well. A few hours later, a red boat bearing an Italian flag approached, they took some photographs and then left.

“The Maltese hooked and towed us and changed direction, southwards. Until a ship bearing a Libyan flag reached us. The Maltese went back, and the Libyans towed us to the nearest harbour, where we arrived the following day. While they made us get off onto the pier, the officers mocked us, ‘So, you wanted to go to Italy, eh?’ and they pushed us, slapping, kicking and punching us”.

The NGO cites figures from the Italian coast guard to the effect that 44 per cent of the 560 rescue interventions at sea it carried out over the first six months of 2007 were conducted in Malta’s search and rescue area (SAR), many of which began in Libyan waters.

It adds that the Italian authorities complain about the lacks of means and scarce cooperation by Libyan and Maltese authorities.

Arguments between Malta and Libya over search and rescue missions, mainly centred on the determination of responsibility for such missions, were a frequent occurrence this spring and early summer.

The issue had landed Malta with scathing criticism from the European press and sections of the political establishment. Malta was accused on a number of occasions of arguing with Libya over responsibilities while migrants were dying at sea, and even of stooping to Libyan levels of human rights.

Malta, Fortress Europe points out, has an SAR far beyond its means. It adds, “However, Malta is unwilling to give up even a single centimetre of its SAR waters because a FIR (Flight Information Region) space corresponds to the SAR area, which yields an income to the small State for the right of passage for every aeroplane that flies over the area, which Valletta does not intend to forfeit.”

The full report can be downloaded from fortresseurope. blogspot.com