Naval forces affiliated with the Libyan Ministry of Interior participated in the joint “Dolphin 1” naval exercise with Malta.
Two naval boats belonging to Libya’s General Administration of Coastal Security, and their crews have arrived at the port of Malta.
The marine exercise is scheduled to take place this week, in Maltese territorial waters in the presence of the interior ministers of both countries.
In May, a training course for marine boat officials and the maritime operations room of the Libyan General Administration of Coastal Security was held in Valletta. The course, which was attended by ten members of the administration’s crews, aimed to raise and develop the capabilities of the maritime boat crews, and the joint maritime operations room in various maritime fields.
The statement noted that this Libyan-Maltese cooperation, is a prelude to the implementation of joint maritime exercises.
The Libyan team includes ten crews of to the General Administration of Coastal Security, along with two naval boats. The training will cover rescue and vertical search, pollution, fire fighting, shipboarding, and combating organized crime.
In May, several NGO’s accused Malta of coordinating an “illegal” pushback of 500 migrants with the Libyan authorities, according to the Times of Malta.
In a joint statement, Alarm Phone, Sea-Watch, Mediterranea Saving Humans, and Emergency said that a large boat with around 500 people in distress, located in Malta’s Search and Rescue (SAR), has been seized and taken back to Libya.
The NGO’s also reported that relatives of the migrants are claiming the “abducted” asylum seekers were taken to a Benghazi prison.
55 children and 45 women were among the 500 people from Syria, Egypt, Bangladesh, and Pakistan aboard the boat, Alarm Phone said. The migrants reported their engine had stopped working 30 nautical miles from the Maltese SAR zone.
Alarm Phone says the situation “worsened throughout the day, with the boat taking in water and several merchant vessels passing by and not intervening.”
The last time Alarm Phone spoke to the group was on Wednesday morning, when they said they were still adrift. Eventually, Sea-Watch’s aircraft Seabird 2, arrived at the last known position and searched for the boat in distress. As did the life support vessel of the NGO Emergency, and other boats of the civil fleet.
