Libya Rescued Migrants
Libya Rescued Migrants: Libya’s coastguard picked up 490 migrants off the coast of Tripoli during rescue operation.
The commander of the Ras Ajdir ship which picked up the migrants said that throughout the day, a number of coastguard ships across the country’s waters picked up a little over nine hundred migrants from a total of six rubber dinghies.
Rescue operations brought the total number of migrants trying to reach Europe, but taken back to Libya, to well over 1,000 since last week alone.
Matteo Salvini, Italy’s hardline interior minister, thanked Libya’s coast guard for picking up more than 800 migrants in the Mediterranean as he flew to Tripoli for the first time to discuss the migration crisis.
The migrants were returned to Libya after Italy’s new populist government prevented humanitarian organizations rescuing them.
“I thank from the bottom of my heart, as a minister and as a father, the Libyan coast guard for having saved and taken back 820 migrants, rendering in vain the work of traffickers,” Mr Salvini said.
However, humanitarian groups condemned the move, saying migrants would be returned to horrific conditions in squalid camps run by Libyan militia and smugglers.
Mr Salvini, who has struck a stridently anti-migrant tone since taking office earlier this month, flew to Libya to cement ties with the internationally recognized government in #Tripoli.
In a tweet, he said he had proposed the setting up of migrant processing centers on Libya’s southern borders, to stop migrants from creating a “bottleneck” along the coast.
While Mr. Salvini’s threats to expel half-a-million unauthorized migrants from Italy and to hold a census of Roma gypsies has earned accusations of intolerance and racism, they have chimed with many Italians.
The operations brings the number, since last week, of mainly African migrants trying to head to Italy but brought back to Libya to almost 2,000.
The western coast of Libya is the main departure point for thousands of migrants fleeing wars and poverty and trying to reach Europe.
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