Italy is to renew its deal with the UN-backed government in Libya under which the Libyan coastguard stops migrant boats at sea and sends their passengers back to the north African country, where aid agencies say they face torture and abuse.
The foreign minister, Luigi Di Maio, told the lower house of parliament it would be “unwise for Italy to break off its agreement with Libya on handling asylum seekers and combating human trafficking”.
The deal was agreed in February 2017 in an attempt to stem the flow of refugees and migrants to Sicily’s shores. Italy agreed to train, equip and finance the Libyan coastguard, including providing four patrol vessels.
The deal, due to expire on Saturday, will be renewed automatically unless one of the parties opts out. Di Maio said: “The document can be amended but it is undeniable that it has reduced the number of arrivals and deaths at sea.”
Sources close to the Italian government said amendments should include evacuation programmes to resettle asylum seekers and measures to ensure the presence of humanitarian organisations in Libyan detention centres. It is not clear whether Tripoli would agree to such changes.
Médecins Sans Frontières said the proposed changes would serve only to “perpetuate policies of rejection and detention” in Libya.
“The only possible solution is to completely overcome the arbitrary detention system and end the support offered to the Libyan authorities that feed suffering, violations of international law and the odious work of smugglers,” said Marco Bertotto, MSF’s head of advocacy.
Early in October the Italian newspaper Avvenire revealed that a man described as one of the world’s most notorious human traffickers attended a series of meetings in Italy in May 2017 between Italian officials and a Libyan delegation to discuss controls on migration flows from north Africa. The alleged trafficker, Abd al-Rahman Milad, nicknamed Bija, is a captain of the Libyan coastguard.
