ROME : Human Rights Watch said on Monday that the EU's border agency Frontex is facilitating the forced return of sea migrants to Libya rather than their rescue by NGOs or other vessels that would take them to Europe. Sending back migrants to Libya, where it is known that they face "atrocious treatment", makes Frontex "complicit in the abuse", Judith Sunderland, HRW's associate Europe and Central Asia director, said in a statement. It witnessed one of the Libyan interceptions "by chance", HRW and Border Forensics said. Frontex said it liaises with "all rescue coordination centres in the region: Italy, Malta, Libya and Tunisia. Unlike what the (report) states, all four are internationally recognised rescue centres," it said.

Source: Libya Today December 12, 2022 13:14 UTC