More money to Libya and Russian conspiracy theory: this is the government’s migration policy

The black hole in funding for Tripoli’s Coast Guard and Crosetto’s accusations against Russia, which would be responsible for the departures from Cyrenaica. Prigozhin replies, calls him an “idiot”. After Cutro, it’s a disaster for Meloni

Even before dawn last Saturday, while a boat with 47 migrants drifted about 100 miles north of Benghazi, the operations center of the General Command of the Port Authorities of Rome – the acronym is MRCC – was trying to get in touch with Tripoli. Presumably, the telephone number dialed by the Italian Coast Guard referred the user to an anonymous apartment located somewhere in Piazza dei Martiri, in the Libyan capital. It is from this pseudo central command that the Libyan agents have arbitrarily denied their willingness to intervene to bring the shipwrecked to safety, claiming that they do not have enough means at their disposal. Then, in the evening, heavy seas killed 30 people, leaving the burden of rescuing the 17 survivors to three private freighters.

Despite the 57 million euros spent by the EU Commission through the Italian Ministry of the Interior, the entity implementing the funding, the Libyan Coast Guard still does not have a central command. It is not a detail for a country which, since 2018, has had a SAR zone recognized by Europe and by the IMO, the International Maritime Organization. Last November, the Commission admitted that the command center in Tripoli was not yet operational. It is therefore impossible to expect real coordination with the Libyans in the surveillance of the Mediterranean. On the other hand, Italian and European aid to Libya for the supply of patrol boats has never been lacking. Nor will it be lacking in the future, according to what was announced by Ana Pisonero, spokeswoman for the EU Commission: “I can’t give any announcements regarding the timing, but there is a need to strengthen Libyan capacity, because they don’t always have the means”. Last month, at the Adria shipyards, the Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani handed over to its Libyan counterpart Najla el Mangoush the first of three other 300 class patrol boats.