Rights activists and migrants gathered in Rome to protest against Italy’s controversial migration agreement with Libya, a day after around 20 people were feared dead in the latest Mediterranean shipwreck, according to the AFP.
The 2017 deal, renewed under Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing government, funds and trains Libya’s coastguard in exchange for intercepting migrants attempting to reach Italy. The pact, heavily criticised by human rights organisations, is due for renewal next month.
During the demonstration, dozens of Sub-Saharan African migrants shared harrowing accounts of their suffering in Libya. The protestors observed a minute of silence to honour those who have died trying to cross the sea.
Hundreds of people attended the rally, including prominent activist Sarita Fratini, who told AFP: “In the central Mediterranean, there is a line called the line of death. In the Libyan area, you get captured. In the north, you die because there is no one there.”
Fratini has been assisting migrants in legal cases against Italy after they were intercepted at sea by Libyan forces and forced back into detention centres notorious for abuse and torture.
Among the protestors was Irene Dea, a 46-year-old from Ivory Coast, who said she had attempted the journey to Europe three times. On her first attempt, 12 passengers drowned. When her boat was later intercepted, she was detained for six months in Libya’s Az-Zawiyah detention centre.
“I saw women being raped with my own eyes,” she recounted. “You don’t eat… it was total anguish.”
NGOs have recently reported multiple incidents of Libya’s coastguard firing on migrant vessels. The Alarm Phone hotline said last week that a boat carrying 113 migrants southeast of Malta came under fatal gunfire.
