Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused the European Union of “complicity” in the violations against migrants in Libya and failing to adhere to human rights standards. This is after the EU handed over a search and rescue vessel to the Libyan authorities, intended for the “abusive” Libyan Coast Guard forces, and promised four more.
HRW called on the EU to suspend cooperation with the Libyan authorities until they “ensure they are complying with the obligation not to return people to places where they face abuse, inhumane detention conditions, and lack access to international protection. This makes the EU more complicit in human rights abuses in the Mediterranean.”
It also urged the EU to stop supporting abusive militias, and instead establish safe and legal pathways for migration.
The statement added that the boat that was handed over by Olivér Várhelyi, the European Commissioner for Neighbourhood and Enlargement, would “tie the EU more directly to abuses that inevitably occur when the Libyan Coast Guard intercepts people at sea and brings them back to Libya.”
“For years the EU has abdicated its primary responsibility of search and rescue in the Mediterranean, where thousands of migrants and asylum seekers have died while attempting to reach Europe from North Africa, particularly Libya,” HRW said.
“The EU and member countries have chosen to furnish money, vessels, training, and aerial surveillance to abusive Libyan armed groups so they can intercept and forcibly return people to Libya, where migrants face systematic and widespread abuses including torture, arbitrary detention, forced labor, and sexual assault,” the statement noted.
HRW called on the EU to “take up its search and rescue responsibilities in the Mediterranean, focus on saving lives, ensure people disembark in a safe port and are never returned to the abuse they faced in Libya.”