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By Libya Herald reporter.
Tunis, 18 April 2015:
The Italian navy has . . .[restrict]arrested a gunman after taking control of a fishing boat that was seized by Misratan forces off the coast of Libya.
In an incident described by Italian fishing authorities as an act of piracy, the fishing vessel from Sicily was seized by gunmen from a tug approximately 50 nautical miles off the Libyan coast on Friday.
Giuseppe Tumbiolo, president of a Sicilian fishing cooperative, said the boat, as yet unnamed, was among a group of trawlers fishing in international waters when the tug appeared.
He said the tug drew alongside the trawler and armed men boarded, capturing the crew of three Italians and four Tunisians. Having taken control, the crew were ordered to head for Misrata, with one gunman left on board.
Nearby fishing boats sent out a mayday to Italian naval units in the area engaged in rescuing migrants, but before they could intervene the trawler crew overpowered the gunman.
Italian naval forces then arrived, securing the boat. The Italian navy said one of the trawler’s crew was slightly wounded.
Misrata, which is part of the Libya Dawn coalition opposing the internationally-recognised government, insisted the gunmen were legitimate coast guard officers and that the boat was fishing inside Libyan waters. But the fishing cooperative has insisted it was “piracy”.
Misrata’s action is a reminder of a long-standing dispute dating from Muammar Gaddafi’s rule, when Libya asserted its territorial limit should be 70 miles, well beyond international agreements. Since 2005, Italian trawlers have periodically been boarded and captured by Libyan forces, accused of fishing inside this limit.
The incident comes amid heightening tensions in the Mediterranean, as a rapid flow of migrants taking advantage of calm seas has erupted into violence in recent days.
Over 10,000 migrants have been rescued from the Mediterranean since last Friday.
In one horrific incident yesterday, 20 migrants were rescued who had been badly burned in a cooking gas accident in Libya. The migrants had left Libyan shores without receiving treatment for their burns. They had reportedly been forced by smugglers to board the boats. One of the victims died during the voyage.
In Sicily, Italian police say they have arrested 15 migrants – from Mali, Guinea and Ivory Coast – on a boat that had headed out form Libya, charged with throwing 12 Christian migrants into the sea to drown. After they reached the Italian shore yesterday, some of the others in the boat reported the fight to the police who subsequently arrested the 15. Police have said the other survivors resisted the same fate of being thrown overboard by forming a human chain, clinging to one another.
It is thought that Friday’s seizure by Misratans of the Italian fishing boat could be connected to the growing need by migrant smugglers for boats to carry out their illicit trade. The Italian navy are destroying them when they pick up migrants and no new ones being made in Libya now. The smugglers are said to have been acquiring some inflatables from Tunisia and Turkey, but no enough to meet the demand for passage across the Mediterranean by the growing wave of migrants. Last week shots were fired by smugglers as they re-took possession of a wooden boat after the Italian navy had taken off its migrants, apparently keen to get the boat back for future use.
Meanwhile, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi met Barack Obama in Washington on Friday to press support for rescue efforts, with the Italian navy overwhelmed by the numbers of migrants needing rescue. “It’s a sea, not a cemetery,” he said.
Rome’s view is that the migrant problem, along with the growth of IS in Libya, can be solved only by a peace deal to end the civil war. “The problem in this moment is the situation on the ground in Libya.”
The presence of gunmen on the high seas is an added complication for Italian and Maltese forces already overstretched rescuing migrants despatched to Europe from the Libyan coast. Italy expects last year’s figure of 200,000 migrant arrivals to be surpassed with the migrant pipeline from Libya now well established and a major source of income for the militias.
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