NATIONAL SECURITY ISSUES
- Laurence Hart, the International Organization for Migration’s Italy and Malta director, announced that there has been a significant increase in the flow of migrants from Libya to Italy. He cited a number of reasons for this, including a hunting moratorium imposed by the Libyan government last year, which led to an increase in the number of departures. “99% of Libyan fishermen are Egyptian, and they found themselves unemployed and without resources overnight. In addition, the Libyan shipowners no longer have the opportunity to use their ships, which were bought by the smugglers or who became the smugglers after that,” Hart said, in an interview with Nova Agency.
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Thirty people are missing and 17 were rescued in the central Mediterranean after the boat in which they were travelling from Libya capsized in bad weather, Italy’s coastguard said. The tragedy comes just weeks after a Feb. 26 shipwreck near the southern region of Calabria, in which at least 79 died. Alarm Phone, a charity that picks up calls from migrant vessels in distress, assumed the 30 people were dead and blamed Italy for not sending its coastguard despite being repeatedly alerted on Saturday that the boat was in trouble.
NATIONAL POLITICS AND SOCIAL ISSUES
- “There are many obstacles in the State Council in Tripoli regarding the formation of the 6+6 committee, which will work on drafting an election law with a committee from the House of Representatives, confirmed a member of the House of Representatives, Jibril Ouhaida. He said he “does not expect that there will be progress in this track until the end of April.”
- Despite the continued UN arms embargo on Libya, Turkish arms companies continue their relentless efforts to control the war market in Libya and cooperate with armed groups in the west of the country. The Turkish company HAVELSAN for Aerospace and Electronic Industries, which is owned by the Turkish Ministry of Defense, is the last to arrive in Tripoli. Muhammad Al-Haddad, Chief of the General Staff in Tripoli, met with the General Director of Turkish HAVELSAN, and his accompanying delegation, in the presence of the Director of the Office of the Minister of Defense, a statement of the Government of National Unity in Tripoli announced.
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
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The Algerian government revealed that the Debdeb border crossing with Libya would be opened to commercial traffic with Libya in the next few days. Algerian Trade Minister Kamal Rezig asked his country’s investors to invest in the emerging Libyan market, especially those specialized in food products and building materials, as expected trade exchanges could increase by opening the crossing by three billion dollars, compared to the 65 million dollars currently, of which 59 million dollars are Algerian exports to Libya.
