Complaint to UN committee alleges Italy and Malta violated migrant rights

A complaint has been filed to the UN Human Rights Committee over the role of Italy, Malta, and Libya in violating migrants’ rights to leave Libya, alleging a denial of the rights of asylum seekers.

The Association for Juridical Studies on Migration (ASGI) and the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS) filed the complaint against Italy, Malta and Libya with the UN Human Rights Committee on behalf of two individuals whose right to leave war-torn Libya was violated by the interception and pull-back carried out by the Libyan Coast Guard with the cooperation of Italian and Maltese authorities.

On Friday 18 October 2019, in the early afternoon, the NGO Alarm Phone was contacted by an overcrowded boat in distress, carrying approximately 50 migrants. They had fled from Libya and were in the Maltese Search and Rescue (SAR) zone, very close to Lampedusa. The Maltese and Italian authorities were immediately informed of the SAR event. However, despite the dangerous situation, Malta and Italy did not activate any search and rescue operation to save the life of the shipwrecked and decided to wait for the arrival of the Libyan Coast Guard.

After many hours at sea, the Libyan patrol boat Fezzan – supplied by Italy in the framework of Italian/Libyan cooperation – intercepted the migrants on the leaking boat.

“Italy and Malta failed to take urgent measures to ensure the necessary assistance and disembark the survivors in a ‘place of safety” – which Libya undoubtedly is not,” the complainants said.

“As a consequence of such a lack of intervention, the survivors, including the complainants, were pulled-back to Libya and beaten up to force them to disembark in a country they had desperately strived to flee from.”

In Libya, migrants are notoriously exploited, abused, traded, ransomed, or deported illegally, and numerous reports attest to migrants and refugees attempting to leave Libya who are knowingly left to die at sea, starving or drowning, detained on boats for days in unbearable conditions, or pushed back illegally, continue to emerge repeatedly.

The complaint argues that Italy, Malta, and Libya are breaching their obligations under international law, as they were subjected to arbitrary and unlimited detention as well as repeated interceptions and pull-backs conducted by Libyan authorities.

“Italy and Malta contributed to the violation by means of the comprehensive technical, economic, logistical, and political support given to Libya to make it the principal outpost for the containment of migratory flows to Europe, and through their role in delegating the rescue operation of 18 October 2019 to Libyan authorities – an operation that ended with the pull-back of the claimants to Libya,” the complainants said.

“For the first time a complaint submitted to an international body calls into question the violation of the right to leave any country as the right leading to the depletion of other fundamental rights – especially the right to asylum of the complainants who find no form of protection in Libya – to be read in the broader border externalization’s framework, structured through cooperation between the European authorities and Libya,” said Cristina Laura Cecchini of ASGI.

“In light of this alarming context, this complaint should serve as a timely reminder for both European and Libyan authorities of their obligations under international law. Forced returns and pullbacks to Libya, implemented through the political and material support to the Libyan Coast Guard and the Directorate for Combating Illegal Migration (DCIM) – against which there are very serious allegations of links with human traffickers and involvement in grave human rights violations such as torture, forced labour, and sexual abuse – trap migrants where they are subjected to appalling abuse. Such practices need to be put to an end,” said Neil Hicks, Senior Advocacy Director of CIHRS.