NATIONAL SECURITY ISSUES
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UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) strongly condemned “the heinous killing” on Friday, October 7, of at least 15 migrants and asylum-seekers in Sabratha, west of Tripoli. Eleven charred bodies were found inside the docked boat with a further four wounded bodies found outside, UNSMIL said in a statement. While the exact circumstances remain to be determined, the killings reportedly resulted from armed clashes between rival traffickers, the Mission pointed out. UNSMIL called on Libyan authorities to ensure a swift, independent and transparent investigation to bring all perpetrators to justice
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Libyan rescue workers have recovered at least 15 bodies found on the coast in Sabratha including a number burned in a boat and others on the beach, a member of the Red Crescent in the city said on Friday, October 7. A security source in Sabratha said the dead people were migrants caught in a dispute between two rival groups of people smugglers in the northwest city, a major hub for illegal migration across the Mediterranean. Pictures shared on social media showed a burning boat on a beach with dark smoke pouring from it and what appeared to be the same vessel, scorched inside and containing charred human remains.
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This week, IOM Voluntary Humanitarian Return VHR team is registering 125 nationals of Ghana at the Ghana Embassy in Tripoli, according to International Organization for Migration (IOM). “Vulnerable cases were referred for further assistance to IOM Medical and Protection teams,” IOM in Libya tweeted on Wednesday, October 5.
“A Charter flight to Ghana is scheduled for the end of October,” said the Organization. - 121 migrants were disembarked back on Libyan shores in the period from 25 September to 1 October, 2022, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM). So far in 2022, 16,627 migrants have been disembarked on Libyan shores, IOM said. It added that 415 migrants died and 714 went missing in the period from 1 Jan to 30 September, 2022 on the Central Mediterranean route.
NATIONAL POLITICS AND SOCIAL ISSUES
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The United States has reiterated its “full support” for the new Special Representative of the UN Secretary General (SRSG) to Libya, Abdoulaye Bathily. U.S. Ambassador and Special Envoy to Libya, Richard Norland said: “I appreciated the opportunity to join U.S. Mission Ambassador to UN, Thomas-Greenfield, and State Department Assistant Secretary for Near-East Affairs, Barbara Leaf, in offering full U.S. support for UN SRSG, Abdoulaye Bathily, as he takes up his important duties.”
- Ankara is trying to “fabricate a reality around something that is illegal” and is “ignoring the international context,” Greek government spokesman Giannis Oikonomou said on Tuesday, October 04, a day after Turkey signed a preliminary agreement with Libya for oil and natural gas exploration on Libyan soil and in the country’s maritime exclusive economic zone (EEZ). “This is not the first time that Turkey appears to be ignoring the international context and trying to create precedents. However, no matter however often it tries to fabricate a reality with fiction and lies, it does not mean that this reality will be accepted and embraced by others.
- Speaker of the Libyan Parliament Aqila Saleh affirmed his rejection to signing any agreement or memorandum of understanding by the outgoing government of Abdel Hamid Dabaiba, considering that they would not be binding for the Libyan state. This came after Dabaiba government’s Foreign and Economy Ministers signed two memoranda of understanding on energy and gas with their Turkish counterparts.
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
- Fathi Bashagha, the Libyan premier designated by the House of Representatives, discussed on Thursday political statement in Libya with Germany’s Special Envoy to the North African country Christian Buck and Ambassador Michael Ohnmacht. The three officials talked about “how to overcome the current stalemate and how to move forward towards elections,” according to Ohnmacht.
- Libya’s Foreign Minister, Najla Mangoush, discussed developments in her country with the British Undersecretary of State for African Affairs, Gillian Keegan, during a phone call yesterday, according to a statement by the Libyan Foreign Ministry. During the call, which the ministry said was initiated by Keegan, the two also discussed “ways to support and strengthen bilateral relations between the two friendly countries”.
- On Wednesday, the German foreign ministry spokesperson Christopher Burger stressed that one of the principles of international law is that it is not possible for two states to enter into an agreement at the expense of a third country when commenting on the memorandum on fossil-fuel exploration signed by Turkey and Libya. “If, in this case, two states enter into an agreement at the expense of Greece, then in all cases Greece is not bound by it and, in this sense, it has no legal effect,” Burger noted.
- Libya and Turkey signed today two memorandum of understandings on hydrocarbons. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu arrived in Tripoli today, leading a top delegation which included his country’s minister of Defense, Energy, Commerce, respectively Hulusi Akar, Fatih Donmez, Mehmet Mus, the presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin and the communications director, Fahrettin Altun. During his visit, Cavusoglu met with Libyan Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh at the government headquarters, where the signing ceremony took place.
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The Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Government of National Unity (GNU) Najla Al-Mangoush, discussed with the European Union (EU) ambassador to Libya, Jose Sabadell, a number of files of common interest in a meeting in Tripoli on Sunday, October 02, and discussed the political developments in the country. The Foreign Ministry said that the two sides discussed the latest on the necessity of activating the agreement with the EU that guarantees the rights for children living with HIV, in addition to facilitating the granting of Schengen visas to Libyan citizens.
