The NGO Doctors without Borders (MSF) says the crew of its Geo Barents rescue ship witnessed the Tripoli-based coast guard intercepting 50 migrants on a boat in distress and returning them to Libya.
According to Tweets posted by the medical humanitarian charity Doctors without Borders (MSF), which operates a private rescue ship, Geo Barents in the central Mediterranean, the Seabird reconnaissance plane operated by fellow humanitarian rescue organization Sea-Watch early Thursday morning (June 8) alerted the crew of the Geo Barents to the presence of a “small blue wooden boat carrying approximately 50 people” in international waters off Libya.
The Seabird then observed the Libyan coast guard moving people from the boat in distress to the “vessel operated by the Libyan Coast Guard” and the migrant boat was then set alight, MSF said on Twitter. “Later, a Libyan Coastal Security vessel arrived,” the charity added.
Before the Geo Barents arrived on the scene around an hour after it received the alert from the Seabird, the crew saw “smoke rising on the horizon,” which MSF says indicated a second boat was also on fire.
Pictures from the news agency Reuters shows a group of migrants arriving in Garaboli in northwest Libya at some point on Thursday (June 8). It wasn’t immediately clear if the Libyan coast guard set the second migrant vessel on fire or why, but NGOs say they have been witnessing this practice for a while.
Source: InfoMigrants
