4 Killed In Libya Coastguard Clashes

Coastguard on Thursday clashed with suspected migrants smugglers and four killed off Libya’s western coast.

Coastguard spokesman Ayoub Qasem said a German journalist travelling in the coast guard boat was also injured in the clash, which he said had started when the coastguards tried to apprehend heavily armed gunmen guarding a migrant boat.

Qasem said two of the suspected smugglers were arrested and one was missing.

“ The gunmen were asked to stop but they refused to follow the rules, which means most likely they were smugglers of illegal migrants.

“They opened fire at the patrol. The coastguards fired back too.”

He said a Spanish cameraman and a Libyan fixer were also traveling on the coast guard boat, and both were unharmed, he said.

Libya’s western coast is the departure point for the vast majority of migrants trying to reach Europe by sea, and powerful smuggling networks have long operated with impunity in the area.

They pack migrants into flimsy inflatable boats usually carrying barely enough fuel to reach international waters, where most are picked up by European rescue craft or other vessels.

On Jan. 23, the EU pledged to step up training and equipping Libya’s coast guard to crack down on migrant smuggling in the North African nation’s waters,.

According to an EU proposal Malta, which holds the current rotating EU Presidency, is pitching the idea as a short-term measure to try to prevent a new spate of smuggling to Europe when spring arrives.

The EU’s naval anti-migrant smuggling task force, known as Operation Sophia, does not have approval yet either from the UN or Tripoli to operate in Libyan waters.

Malta’s proposal on “empowering Libyan forces” questions whether it is “politically realistic” to expect that EU naval forces will be able to operate within Libyan waters in the months ahead.

An EU summit in December 2016 called for increasing support to the Libyan coast guard, which the EU began training and equipping last October.

The Maltese document said the increased support could be carried out by the current train and equip programme under Operation Sophia but said “the issue of financing needs to be addressed as a matter of priority for future trainings”.

The UN-backed Libyan unity government is seeking to end years of lawlessness following the 2011 overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi but it is locked in a power struggle with a rival administration in eastern Libya.

The EU proposal also raised the possibility of using its ties with Libya’s neighbours Tunisia and Egypt to crack down on migrant smuggling.

The EU added that arrivals over the central Mediterranean route, with Libya as the main launchpad, are picking up sharply with more than 180,000 migrants landing in Italy last year, compared with a previous annual record of 170,100 in 2014.