Libyan coastguard fired at two rescue ships in international waters

The Libyan coastguard reportedly fired multiple times at two rescue boats of the NGO SOS Mediterranée in international waters, endangering the lives of dozens of migrants and crew members.

"They proved again that they are not rescuing people. What they are doing is adding another level of complexity and violence which is completely unreasonable," Alessandro, the Search and Rescue (SAR) team leader, who was in one of the two speedboats when the encounter with the Libyans occurred, told French media Euractiv.

The event occurred Friday, 7 June, during a rescue operation in international waters overlooking the Libyan coast.

The SOS Mediterranée's rescue ship Ocean Viking received a mayday relay about a boat in distress with 11 people onboard that was eventually found 124 Km from Khoms, northwestern Libya.

With already 47 migrants on the mothership from a first rescue, the Italian Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (MRCC) told the Ocean Viking that the Ministry of Interior assigned them the port of Civitavecchia, near Rome, to disembark the people from the first rescue. 

The rescue boat told MRCC that they received another mayday relay from an unidentified plane. Italy told the Ocean Viking to "proceed and assess".

According to international law, when a boat is found in distress at sea, it must proceed swiftly with a rescue.

The Ocean Viking said it tried to establish communication with the Libyan guards that were not speaking in English but only in Arabic. Being able to speak in English is mandatory for any coastguard, according to maritime law.

On 07.07.23, #OceanViking rescued 11 people following a mayday relay. During the operation, @SOSMedIntl crew & 11 survivors faced a security incident with a Libyan patrol vessel shooting in close range of our fast rescue boats. Here the reconstruction of this unacceptable event👇 pic.twitter.com/EWzcz5Rvbn

— SOS MEDITERRANEE (@SOSMedIntl) July 9, 2023

An Arabic-speaking crew member told the rescue boat first to "go away." They "okayed" the rescue operation after being told about the MRCC's approval.

Two fast rescue boats were swiftly launched to evacuate the 11 distressed people. 

"On their way back to Ocean Viking, a Libyan patrol vessel approached them closely and started shooting multiple times in the air, endangering the lives of the crew and survivors," tweeted SOS Mediterranée shortly after the incident.

The incident ended with no fatalities or injuries, with the ship heading safely to the Italian port of Civitavecchia, according to SOS Mediterranée.

The ship from which the shots came was an ex-Italian Finance Guard boat, a "Carrubia Class" donated to Libya under the EU project "Support to Integrated Border and Migration Management in Libya".

"The photo taken from the footage was compared with the picture of the EU donation ceremony that Radio Radicale journalist Sergio Scandura published on Twitter on Friday (23 June)," confirmed Euractiv media.

According to the European Commission, the project "aims to strengthen the capacity of relevant Libyan authorities in border and migration management, including border control and surveillance, addressing smuggling and trafficking of human beings, search and rescue at sea and in the desert".

However, NGOs argue that the Libyan coastguard uses its assets, which are usually faster than rescue groups, to intercept migrants and illegally return them to Libya, where they experience documented abuses in detention centres in a well-established network of human trafficking.

Survivors onboard the Ocean Viking confirmed to reporters on the ground that they had been detained, freed after a ransom was paid and then tried to escape via sea. 

In March, United Nations Human Right Council released a report documenting the collusion of the "high-ranking staff of the Libyan Coast Guard" with traffickers and smugglers. Tripoli has yet to comment on these accusations.