The Libyan Coast Guard is the

coast guard A coast guard or coastguard is a maritime security organization of a particular country. The term embraces wide range of responsibilities in different countries, from being a heavily armed military force with customs and security duties to ...

Libya Libya (; ar, ليبيا, Lībiyā), officially the State of Libya ( ar, دولة ليبيا, Dawlat Lībiyā), is a country in the Maghreb region in North Africa. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to Egypt–Libya bo ...

. Organizationally part of the

Libyan Navy Libyan Navy ( ar, قوات البحرية الليبية) is the branch of the Libyan military responsible for naval warfare. Established in November 1962, Libyan Navy has been headed by Admiral Mansour Bader, Chief of Staff of the Libyan Naval F ...

, it operates as a proxy force of the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...

(EU) in order to prevent migrants from reaching the EU's borders. As of 2015, the Libyan Coast Guard consists of over 1,000 personnel. Since 2015, it has received $455 million in funding from the EU. The Libyan Coast Guard is involved in

human trafficking Human trafficking is the trade of humans for the purpose of forced labour, sexual slavery, or commercial sexual exploitation for the trafficker or others. This may encompass providing a spouse in the context of forced marriage, or the extrac ...

enslavement Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...

torture Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. Some definitions are restricted to acts c ...

, and other

human rights Human rights are Morality, moral principles or Social norm, normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for ce ...

violations.

History

The foundation of the Libyan Coast Guard dates back to 1970 when the previously separate customs and harbor police were joined in a single command within the

and under the Ministry of Defense. In 2006–2008 the Coast Guard fleet was renewed and equipped with 'stealth' cruising speed PV30-LS patrol boats designed and produced by the Croatian company Adria-Mar. In 2017 the coast guard were criticised for failing to respond to ten vessels in distress. During the

2015 European migrant crisis The 2015 European migrant crisis, also known internationally as the Syrian refugee crisis, was a period of significantly increased movement of refugees and migrants into Europe in 2015, when 1.3 million people came to the continent to request ...

, the Libyan Coast Guard intercepted refugee and migrant boats travelling across the

Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the ea ...

, per a funding agreement reached with

Frontex The European Border and Coast Guard Agency, also known as Frontex (from French: ''Frontières extérieures'' for "external borders"), is an agency of the European Union headquartered in Warsaw, Poland, exercising in coordination with the borde ...

, the European border agency. The interceptions have been criticised as "worsening the crisis" and in November 2021 were reported to result in 27,500 people being returned to detention centres. In May 2021, Salvatore Quinci, the mayor of Mazaro del Vallo, reported the second recent incident where fishermen were shot at by the coast guard, the later incident non fatality injuring one man. In July 2021 the Libyan Coast Guard was criticised for chasing and then shooting at a migrant boat. Later in July 2021, a former senior Libyan police officer accused the coast guard of robbing people, and of being people smugglers. In November 2021, the coast guard threatened the German humanitarian vessel ''Sea Watch 4''.

Criticism of EU funding

The EU policy of funding the Libyan Coast Guard has been criticised on the grounds that intercepted migrants face mistreatment, reports of human rights abuses caused the German government to cease training the Libyan coast guard in 2023, EU funding continues. The United Nations high commissioner for human rights

Zeid bin Ra'ad Prince Zeid bin Ra'ad bin Zeid al-Hussein ( ar, زيد ابن رعد الحسين; born 26 January 1964) is a Jordanian former diplomat who is the Perry World House Professor of the Practice of Law and Human Rights at the University of Pennsylvan ...

criticised the EU for funding the Libyan coast, calling the policy inhumane. He pointed to the conditions in Libyan Government refugee camps, in which migrants are held after interception. Visits by UN staff had shown these to be overcrowded and lacking basic necessities, refugees held at the camps reported sexual violence being committed by guards.

References

External links

Libyan Coast Guard page on the Libya Observer
{{Coast guards Libyan Navy Coast guards 1970 establishments in Africa Organizations based in Tripoli, Libya

History

Criticism of EU funding

See also

References

External links