Theresa Maggio

I meant to post this a while ago but got distracted. This is my translation of a story that appeared in MeridioNews in late August.

" The prison guards kill people and throw them in a pit. They cover the pit only when it is full of bodies." This is the story of a migrant rescued last Sunday by the ship Aquarius of the international NGO organization SOS Mediterranee. Describing the tortures suffered by those waiting to leave for Europe was a man from Cameroon in his twenties. " All the people you see here," he said indicating the other survivors "went through many trials, they are dead inside for a long time now, even their families must believe they are dead. Today is like a resurrection."

Perpetrators of the violence, according to survivor accounts, would be the Libyan guards. "The Libyans beat us the whole time, for no reason. They put us in prison for no reason," he continued, adding that he witnessed a scene in which a prisoner was hung by his feet and beaten "as if he were a ball."
On the lines of these stories, the NGO launches the same old appeal to the European Union so that it may not reduce its own responsibility in the Mediterranean. Read More 

A friend of mine -- Ester Russo, we were housemates in Palermo -- is now a psychologist for arriving immigrants with MSF, Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders) in Trapani, Sicily. She hears the horror stories of violence, rape, beatings, starvation, racism and murder in Libyan refugee camps. She alerted me to the following report.

"For more than a year, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has been providing medical care to refugees, asylum-seekers and migrants held inside Tripoli detention centres in conditions that are neither humane nor dignified.

Detainees are stripped of any human dignity, suffer ill-treatment and lack access to medical care. Detention is causing harm and unnecessary suffering. It is directly linked to the majority of the physical and mental health problems for which detainees require medical attention. People are held arbitrarily with no way to challenge the legality of their detention, virtually no access to consular services or to the outside world.

With no rule of law in Libya, the detention system is harmful and exploitative. There is a disturbing lack of oversight and regulation. With no formal registration or proper record-keeping in place, once people are inside a detention centre there is no way to track what happens to them. Some people are held for prolonged periods of time; others are transferred between different detention centres, moved to undisclosed locations or disappear overnight.

MSF witnesses on a daily basis how much unnecessary harm is being caused by detaining people in these conditions. There is only so much medical teams can do to ease the suffering.

MSF calls for an end to the arbitrary detention of refugees, asylum-seekers and migrants in Libya. "  Read More 

Now that accords between the governments of Italy and Libya have forced most NGO migrant rescue ships out of the Strait of Sicily, traffickers are back at work bringing migrants to Sicily. The first debarkation in the Eolian islands happened overnight. Some forty Iraqis were found at Grotticella, a beach on the island of Lipari reachable only by boat. Fishermen up early noticed the men, women and children and called island emergency personnel who picked them up and brought them to a first aid station. Authorities are looking for the vessel that dropped them there. Read More 

THe NGO non profit MOAS has suspended rescue operations of migrants in the Mediterranean and will move to south east Asia to rescue migrants there.
MOAS was founded in 2014 to reduce the loss of lives along the migration path between Africa and Europe. In the following three years MOAS rescued more than 40,000 people including children, women and men who were victims of violence, poverty and persecution.
MOAS co-founder Regina Catrambone explained to supporters: "At present, there are too many questions without an answer, and too many doubts about those trapped or forced back to Libya.

"The horrific tales of those who survive depict a nightmare of abuse, violence, torture, kidnapping and extortion.

"MOAS does not want to become part of a scenario where no one pays attention to the people who deserve protection, instead only focusing on preventing them from arriving on European shores with no consideration of their fate when trapped on the other side of the sea."

The rescue ship will now sail to the Bay of Bengal between the borders of Myanmar and Bangladesh to save the fleeing Rohingya people. The Rohingya are a stateless Muslim ethnic minority who have faced persecution in Myanmar. Many of those who have fled describe troops and Buddhist mobs burning their villages and attacking civilians in the province in Rakhine.

The United Nations has described them as the most persecuted people on earth, with Pope Francis appealing for an end to violence on 27 August.  Read More 

From La Repubblica today:
The bodies of 49 immigrants asphyxiated by diesel fumes in the hold of a trafficker's fishing boat were lifted ashore by a crane at the port of Catania today. The ones who pay the least for their passage, usually the women, are relegated to the airless, windowless hold, locked in, thesurest to die if the vessel sinks, with only diesel fumes to breathe. The survivors numbered 312, of whom 45 were women and three minor children.
They arrived on the Norwegian ship Siem Pilot.  Read More 

From The Guardian:
Three NGOs have suspended migrant rescues in the Mediterranean because of the increasingly hostile stance of the Libyan authorities and coastguard.

Save the Children and Germany’s Sea Eye have joined Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) in halting operations because they feel their crews can no longer work safely in  Read More 

From La Repubblica:
ROME -- After Doctors Without Borders suspended migrant rescues at sea, the German NGO Sea Eye and the NGO Save The Children have also suspended rescues in the Mediterranean Sea. This is because the Libyan government instituted a no go zone "limiting access of NGOs to international waters" and to "securityrisk" owing to threats by the Libyan coast guard."
The German NGO repeats the accusation of Doctors Without Borders: " We find ourselves forced into this decision because of the changed security situationin the Mediterranean," "we can no longer continue our work, we cannot guarantee the safety of the crews," "the expansion of Libya's territorial waters end the threats against NGOs leave us no other choice" one reads in a series of tweets....

Stefano Argenziano, Doctors Without Borders coordinator for migration projects, said, "The Libyans can now do what they want with the support of Europe and Italy. ""We of Doctors Without Borders do not want to be co-opted in this illegal, perverse and inhumane machine. " "The code of conduct is just a distraction, it has no basis in law. The ones respecting the law are us, as we have always done. The illegal things, instead, are the EU's agreements with Libya,which boost the proliferation of traffickers and mafia. Migrant crises are resolved only with the reasonable management of migrant flow. We will again take up our activities at sea only when
the rule of law and international rights return.  Read More 

From the Guardian:
Doctors Without Borders has said that it is temporarily suspending the activity of its rescue ship owing to alleged threats from Libya. The Libyan coastguard has increasingly become more aggressive in patrolling the waters off its coasts where human traffickers launch boats crowded with migrants desperate to reach Europe.

The humanitarian group said the rescue coordination centre operated by Italy’s coastguard had informed it on Friday that the Libyan threats pose a security risk. The group added that Libyan authorities declared their own rescue area, extending into international waters, the same day. Read More 

Most of the immigrants arrive in Sicily from north Africa on flimsy rubber rafts. A few lucky ones arrive on 20-foot boats. They aim to land at night on nature reserves or tiny, unknown beaches. They escape, unseen. Many run to Palermo. They leave their old boats behind rocking in the waves.
 Read More 

Eight corpses were recovered from aboard a rubber raft full of migrants coming from Libya and headed towards Italy during a rescue operation.
From La Repubblica:
Five hundred migrants were rescued at sea in four operations today, according to the Italian Coast Guard.