One year after Italy signed an agreement with Libya to reduce migrant flows, Oxfam Italy is calling on the Italian government to revoke the accord. It cited migrant accounts of violence and torture in the country in a report titled "Libya, hell without end."
The organizations Oxfam Italia and Borderline Sicilia are calling on the Italian government to "immediately revoke" its February 2, 2017, agreement with Libya on migrants, as well as "all activities aimed at returning people to Libya, including the cooperation with the Libyan Coast Guard."
In a statement, Oxfam said "hundreds of thousands of people are still trapped in Libya, in detention centers and are suffering abuses of all types".
One year after the the Italy-Libya agreement was signed, the organizations have gathered firsthand accounts in a new report titled "Libya, Inferno Senza Fine" (Libya, hell without end), which they said includes "serious accounts from men, women and children who managed to escape and arrive in Italy, confirming kidnappings, murders, rapes, and forced labor".
Accord 'doesn't respect human rights'
"Italy signed the ‘Memorandum of Understanding’ with the UN-backed government in Tripoli on February 2, 2017, which EU heads of state and government endorsed a day later at their Malta informal summit.
The deal lacks sufficient safeguards for human rights and international law, since Libya has refused to sign the 1951 refugee convention that protects people who flee persecution and conflict," the organizations said. The Italian government has "various times emphasized that the accord was signed mainly to put an end to deaths at sea," however today the central Mediterranean route "is the most dangerous in the world with 2.38 percent of victims in 2017 (out of the total number of arrivals) compared to 2.52 percent in 2016. And 2018 hasn't started off well, with 185 deaths, equivalent to 5.1 percent".
EU 'must protect migrant rights'
Last August, in a report based on direct accounts provided by 158 people, Oxfam and its partners, Borderline and MEDU, said 84 percent of those interviewed said they had experienced degrading and inhumane treatment, extreme violence or torture in Libya, and 74 percent said they had witnessed people being murdered or tortured.
"The people we have spoken to are escaping war, persecution and poverty," said Oxfam Italy’s executive director, Roberto Barbieri. "European governments have a duty to protect the human rights of all people, including migrants. Migrants crossing the sea to escape Libya should never be stopped and returned back. That's why we believe that Italy and the EU’s support for the Libyan coastguard is adding to the suffering. The accord with Libya is a failure that exposes hundreds of thousands of people to unspeakable suffering. We are asking for an immediate end to it," he said.