2023-06-16 05:38:03
The overloaded boat that sank in the Ionian Sea Wednesday June 14 left from Tobruk in Libya, about a hundred kilometers from the border with Egypt. It was not a Zodiac, frequently used for migrants leaving from the west, a region headed by Abdelhamid Dbeibah, recognized by the UN. But a fishing boat left from the east, a region held by the powerful Haftar clan, which uses boats at the end of the race to exploit migrants.
“It is more precisely the work of Saddam Haftar (Marshal Khalifa Haftar’s son, editor’s note) which is fine with any type of crime – human trafficking, Captagon, gold trafficking – as long as the order is well paid for”says Jalel Harchaoui, associate researcher at the Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies (RUSI).
A longer, more dangerous road
The majority of the 22,000 arrivals of migrants since the beginning of the year in Italy, via Libya, now come from the eastern region of Cyrenaica. In the east of the country, interception operations are rarer. But the longer journey is also more dangerous. For the equivalent of €1,500 per candidate for exile, this itinerary favors navigation in international waters to reach the Italian coast. Since the beginning of the year, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), 368 migrants have gone missing and more than 600 have drowned off the coast of Libya.
After Tobruk, Benghazi is the second port of departure to Europe. Egyptian nationals, driven by poverty, form the bulk of the exiles who follow this route. There are also Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, in particular. The latter transit thanks to an air bridge provided between Damascus and Benghazi by the company Cham Wings under the orders of the regime of Bashar el-Assad. She became known in 2021 for having participated in the migratory pressure exerted in Poland and Lithuania via Belarus. The European Union had imposed sanctions against it, before lifting them in July 2022.
The establishment of this migratory route is a way of making oneself indispensable for the Haftar clan: “Saddam Haftar would like us to roll out the same red carpet for him as Rome rolled out in the West when the Italian hydrocarbon company ENI put on the table, last January, 8 billion euros of investments in the gas sector. He also wants the Europeans to help him plead his case with Washington.”indique Jalel Harchaoui.
Blackmail lever
The researcher believes that this strategy is beginning to bear fruit. In May, the conservative nationalist Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni had to receive Khalifa Haftar at the Palazzo Chigi, in compensation for her trip to the “enemy” of Tripoli at the start of the year. And a week ago, Italian Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi said bluntly during a press conference held in Catania, Sicily: “We will ask Haftar for more collaboration to stop the departures. » In return, this close to the leader of the League of Matteo Salvini (extreme right) says he is ready to finance development projects, including the reconstruction of Benghazi.
As elsewhere in North Africa or Turkey, the EU and Italy have long laid the groundwork for cooperation with the government of Tripoli to prevent crossings. As early as 2016, Libyan coastguards were trained and then equipped to manage flows. Libya has 600,000 migrants from 41 nationalities on its territory, according to the IOM, which estimates the proportion of children at 11%. Most of them come from sub-Saharan Africa, Niger, Egypt, Sudan, Chad and Nigeria. Since the beginning of the year, more than 7,000 migrants have been intercepted at sea and brought back to Libya.
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