Libya Security Highlights (February 12-18, 2024)

NATIONAL SECURITY ISSUES

• Italy’s Court of Cassation, the country’s highest judicial authority, has ruled that handing over refugees and migrants rescued in the Central Mediterranean to the Libyan coast guard is a crime because the north African country is not a safe port. Italian newspaper La Repubblica reported that the decision makes final the conviction of the captain of the Italian private vessel Asso 28, which on 30 July 2018 rescued 101 people in the central Mediterranean and then handed them over to the Libyan coastguard to be returned to Libya.

• International Organization for Migration (IOM) has announced that 147 Nigerian migrants were able to return home safely from Benghazi to Lagos last week. The deportation came with the support of IOM’s Voluntary Humanitarian Return Assistance Program, according to the Organization.

• The European border agency, Frontex, gave away the location of migrant boats to the Libyan coast guard hundreds of times, leaked documents have revealed. Despite having witnessed them shooting at boats and beating migrants who had fled Libya, found journalists. The German magazine Spiegel and Lighthouse Reports, a public interest journalism project based in the Netherlands, have published damning allegations against the EU border and coast guard agency, Frontex.

• International Organization for Migration (IOM) announced that 442 migrants had been intercepted and returned to Libya from 4 to 10 February, 2024. So far in 2024, the number of 1004 have been intercepted and returned to Libya, IOM said on X. IOM added that 16 migrants died and 73 went missing on the Central Mediterranean route from 1 January to 10 February, 2024.

  

NATIONAL POLITICS AND SOCIAL ISSUES

• In a meeting that took place in his office in Qobba, Speaker of the House of Representatives Aguila Saleh engaged in discussions with Member of the German Parliament Tobias Bacherle and German Ambassador to Libya Michael Ohnmacht. The talks centered on exploring the latest developments in Libya’s political landscape and exploring potential avenues to address the ongoing crisis through the organization of elections, according to a statement released by the House of Representatives following the meeting.
• The Benghazi Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture today announced the holding of the Libyan-Tunisian Trade Forum in the city of Benghazi on 13 February. The event will be held in cooperation with Emaar Libya Holding Company and the Tunisian Export Promotion Centre (Centre de Promotion des Exportations de la Tunisie – CEPEX).

• Director of the African Affairs Department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Abdel Nasser Younis, chaired the meeting of the African Union Ministerial Committee concerned with following up on the implementation of Africa Agenda 2063, which was held virtually in the capital, Tripoli. The meeting discussed the evaluation of the first ten-year plan for the agenda, the draft of the second ten-year plan, and draft documents that will be submitted to the African Summit scheduled to be held on February 17 and 18.

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

• In a joint press conference between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, both leaders stressed the importance of coordination and cooperation between their countries to support efforts aimed at achieving stability in Libya.

• Mohammed Takala, the Head of Libya’s High Council of State, arrived in the Moroccan capital Rabat, leading a delegation from the Council, to participate in the Parliamentary Conference of Second Chambers in the Arab World, Africa, and Latin America, taking place in Rabat on February 15th and 16th. Takala and the accompanying delegation’s visit to Morocco comes at the official invitation of the President of the Moroccan Council of Advisors, as mentioned in a statement from the Council’s Media Office.

• Libyan Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh, held talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the sidelines of the World Government Summit being hosted in Dubai. The meeting, as highlighted in a statement from Dbeibeh’s media office, centered on a range of issues concerning bilateral relations and regional developments.