UNHCR worried about migrants returned to Libya
Libya orders UN refugee agency to leave country
The UN's refugee agency has expressed concern about a group of 20 Eritreans who were returned to Libya after their boat was intercepted "in or near" Malta's search and rescue area.
The boat, with a seven-month-old child and three women among those on board, was intercepted by a Libyan patrol boat about 40 nautical miles from Lampedusa in an area the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees believes could have been in Malta's search and rescue zone.
A spokesman for the Ministry For Justice and Home Affairs said, however, that in this case, the Maltese government had met the international obligations it has with regards to its search and rescue region to the fullest extent possible, as it had always done.
UNHCR spokesman Melissa Fleming said: "We are concerned about their access to international protection in Libya, which is not a signatory state to the 1951 convention and has no domestic asylum system."
In 2008, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi had agreed that immigrants intercepted in international waters would be returned to Libya. Malta never officially subscribed to this policy.
The interception of the boat by Libyan officials on Monday took place in spite of the fact that UNHCR had relayed calls by the people on board "to Maltese and Italian vessels" some "24 hours before" they were picked up.
Early on Monday morning, the migrants had twice phoned relatives in Italy, using a satellite phone, saying their dinghy was sinking.
A commercial freighter sent to the area - at the edge of Libyan waters - found no trace of the boat and a search by an Armed Forces of Malta aircraft also proved negative. It then transpired that the migrants were intercepted by a Libyan patrol boat, which took them to shore.
Meanwhile Libyan authorities have ordered the UN refugee agency to shut its office in Libya and leave the country, Ms Fleming said yesterday.
"We have not been given any reason by Libyan authorities why we should leave," said Ms Fleming.
In a statement yesterday, Libya said it had ordered the closure because Tripoli was not a signatory to the Geneva Convention on refugees and, therefore, did not recognise the UN agency's office in Tripoli. It added that Libya had not signed a cooperation agreement with the refugee agency either. In 2001, it had authorised the appointment of a UNHCR representative to Libya whose mission "was limited to solving a particular problem."