Barcelona: The European island nation of Malta is being charged with breaking international maritime law by allegedly coordinating the return of about 500 people to Libya, where they were later imprisoned. The accusations come from a group of non-governmental organisations working to rescue migrants in the central Mediterranean.

The migrants reported to Alarm Phone, a hotline for migrants in distress, that they were adrift and taking in water on May 23 while trying to reach Europe aboard a rusty iron fishing boat, the NGOs said in a statement. The group of migrants included 55 children and pregnant women

As they travel from Libya to Italy or Malta, people smugglers are increasingly cramming migrants and refugees onto outdated and hazardous fishing boats.

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In a region of the Mediterranean where Malta is in charge of search and rescue, migrants aboard the ship shared their GPS location with Alarm Phone, indicating that they were in international waters.

Three days later, the migrants were reportedly returned to Benghazi in eastern Libya, according to relatives of the migrants, Alarm Phone reported, despite repeated pleas for assistance sent to Maltese authorities.

The Rescue Coordination Centre of Malta decided to organise a mass pushback by proxy at sea, forcing 500 people across 330 kilometres into a Libyan prison, rather than transporting those who had attempted to flee the extreme violence people on the move experience in Libya to a location of safety. Check out the joint statement from Alarm Phone, Sea-Watch, Mediterranean Saving Humans, and  EMERGENCY on Monday.

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The Maltese Armed Forces, who are in charge of search and rescue operations, did not immediately return calls or emails from the AP.

The self-styled Libyan National Army, a force in the east of the country led by military commander Khalifa Haftar, is said to have brought 485 people back to Benghazi, according to the International Organisation for Migration and the UN Refugee Agency, who spoke to the Associated Press.
 
The UN agencies were unable to immediately confirm that the migrants were the same group described by Alarm Phone.

The Tareq Bin Zeyad, the boat that seized the 485 migrants, is named after a militia commanded by Haftar's son. Amnesty International claimed in a report from last year that the Tareq Bin Zeyad militia had "thousands of Libyans and migrants subjected to brutal and relentless abuses since 2016."

The Tareq Bin Zeyad was reportedly seen on May 24 travelling in "peculiar patterns" close to the last known location of the boat in distress, indicating the militia was searching for it, according to the NGOs' statement on Monday.

Separately, over the weekend, eastern Libyan forces claimed to have stopped a large boat carrying over 800 migrants, including whole families and young children. Three days after their ship broke down in the Mediterranean, on May 26, the migrants were brought back to Libyan shores in Benghazi.

One migrant interviewed in a video posted by the same eastern forces on May 27 depicting the disembarkation of migrants apprehended at sea claims that the vessel capsized off the coast of Malta and that the Libyan navy sprang into action to save them.

IOM and UNHCR have both strongly opposed the repatriation of migrants and refugees to Libya, arguing that the lawless country should not be regarded as a secure location for disembarkation as required by international maritime law.

In what a UN panel of experts said may amount to crimes against humanity, migrants who are sent back to Libya are subjected to arbitrary detention, extortion, torture, and forced disappearances by militias and human traffickers.

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Human rights groups have long accused Malta of adopting a policy of "non-assistance" and of working with Libyan forces to repatriate the migrants while they are EU-trained and -funded.

In order to protest their detention in Benghazi, relatives of some of the migrants who were intercepted, according to Alarm Phone, contacted the company on May 26.
The statement quoted one relative as saying, "The people fled wars and prisons in Syria, and now, regrettably, they have been returned to Libya."