Italy Returned Migrant Barge to Libya, Sea Watch Denounces

On Sunday, the NGO Sea Watch accused the Italian authorities of returning to Libya a boat carrying 30 African migrants that was saved by the ship Grimstad.

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The Italian Coast Guard, which denied having asked the Libyan authorities to intercept that barge, said that the request for help from the boat occurred within the Libyan search and rescue zone (SAR).

Therefore, after the rescue of the migrants, the Bahamas-flagged merchant ship Grimstad handed over the migrants to the Libyan authorities in waters off the port of Zueitina.

Sea Watch considers that the return of the immigrants is illegal since Libya is a country in chaos and does not represent a "safe harbor" for the people rescued.

The tweet reads, "The freighter Grimstad rescued a distressed vessel with about 30 people who were sighted by Seabird yesterday, after Libya denied being the responsible authority."

In an audio posted on social networks, the humanitarian surveillance plane "Seabird" is heard communicating with the Grimstad commander, who assures that he was following orders from the Italian Coast Guard Operations Center.

Currently, Italy is facing a crisis due to the migratory flows coming from the coasts of Tunisia and Libya. So far this year, some 40,856 migrants have landed on Italian territory, especially on the island of Lampedusa, whose primary reception center is completely saturated.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has documented 441 dead immigrants in the first quarter of 2023 in the waters of the central Mediterranean.

This is the highest figure recorded since 2017. Since 2014, however, migration across the Mediterranean has left 26,664 dead and at least 17,000 missing people.