NATIONAL SECURITY ISSUES
- A fishing boat carrying 531 migrants landed in Lampedusa after it was rescued and escorted by the Italian coastguard. According to Italian news agency ANSA, the 25-metre fishing boat set sail from Zuwarah in Libya, with 531 Migrants on board, including five women and six children, mostly originating from Syria, Egypt, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
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Libya is hosting 704,369 irregular migrants on its territory, according to The International Organization for Migration (IOM) data. The UN organization estimates that 79% of those migrants are men, 11% women, and 10% children. The report released on Friday, November 03, was based on an IOM survey conducted between May and June of this year.
- Six people were killed and 12 wounded when armed groups clashed in the western Libyan city of Gharyan, several sources said. According to Bawabat Al-Wasat news website, fighting broke out suddenly in the early hours between armed groups in the city; the Stabilization Support Apparatus and the Joint Security Force, both of which are affiliated with the Government of National Unity, led by Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh.
- Authorities in Libya exhumed on Sunday the skeletal remains of 50 flood victims in Derna to collect DNA samples, hoping to identify missing people among those buried. In a statement via Facebook, the Medical Emergency and Support Center said these DNA samples were collected from bodies of victims who were buried in a mass grave in Al-Dhahr Al-Ahmar cemetery after Storm Daniel unleashed extreme floods that devastated the city and killed over 4,000 people on September 10.
- The Libyan Prime Minister, Osama Hammad, held an expanded security meeting to review the progress of the work of all security agencies, and all the capabilities they need in order to conduct their work to the fullest extent, in addition to joint coordination between them to secure the international conference for the reconstruction of Derna and other flood-affected towns.
NATIONAL POLITICS AND SOCIAL ISSUES
- Counterterrorism and political developments in Libya were the focus of talks between General Commander of the Libyan National Army (LNA), Khalifa Haftar, and the French President’s Special Envoy to Libya, Paul Soler. France’s Ambassador to Libya Mostafa Mihraje was also present in the meeting which took place at LNA’s main headquarters in Benghazi.
- The Security Council is expected to vote on renewing the mandate of the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL), which expires on 31 October. The draft resolution would renew the mandate of UNSMIL for one year, until 31 October 2024. The draft text maintains UNSMIL’s core mandated tasks, as set out in resolution 2542 of 15 September 2020 and paragraph 16 of resolution 2570 of 16 April 2021.
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
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The Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives, Youssef Al-Aqouri, and Moscow’s ambassador to Libya, Aydar Aganin, held discussions in Benghazi on ways to strengthen educational cooperation and offer scholarships for Libyan students in Russia, in addition to reactivating joint agreements in the field of civil safety and disaster response.
- The UN Security Council’s unanimous decision yesterday to extend the mandate of the UN Mission in Libya “demonstrates the international community’s strong support for [UN Envoy] Bathily’s efforts to further an inclusive political process leading to elections and a unified government in Libya,” said US Ambassador Richard Norland.
- The governor of the Central Bank of Libya, Al Saddiq al Kabir, met with the deputy foreign minister of Turkey, Ahmet Yildiz, and the Turkish ambassador, Kanan Yilmaz, for talks on potential involvement of Turkish companies in the reconstruction of Derna which was destroyed by Storm Daniel on September 10.
