Thirty-eight European Parliament lawmakers from four political groups have urged the European Commission to end all funding for Libyan security forces. Mounting evidence shows EU-backed Libyan authorities have committed severe human rights abuses, including human trafficking, forced labor, starvation, sexual violence, and torture. Despite this, EU payments continue.

Mediterranean “line of death” 

Irene Dea, from the Ivory Coast, was sailing off the coast of Italy when the Libyan Coast Guard captured her boat and imprisoned her in a detention center in Tripoli. Subsequently, Dea spent 6 months in the facility where she says she saw women sexually abused. 

France 24 reported: 

“Last week, the Alarm Phone charity, which runs a hotline for migrants stranded in the Mediterranean, reported a fatal shooting at a boat it said was carrying 113 migrants southeast of Malta. Italy’s coastguard also said migrants it subsequently rescued said they had been shot at.”  

One Italian activist described a boundary in the central Mediterranean known as “the line of death.” Sadly, reports of Libya’s coast guard shooting at boats carrying migrants in the Mediterranean have only been increasing. And just a few months ago an Italian journalist captured Libyan militias horrifically dumping migrants into the Mediterranean.  

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