Search Results for: Mediterranean

The Russian-Ukrainian crisis started to deteriorate in early 2021 when Ukraine arrested pro-Russian politician Viktor Medvedchuk on allegations of conspiring a coup d’etat, and Russia initiated military exercises near the Ukrainian border. Russia is the second-largest oil producer, trailing only the United States, and the third-leading oil exporter, behind Saudi Arabia and the United Arab [...]

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Amnesty International Monday released a statement condemning the European Union’s cooperation with Libyan authorities to intercept refugees and migrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea to Europe. According to Amnesty, “migrants and refugees both in and outside of detention in Libya are systematically subjected to a litany of abuses by militias, armed groups and security forces with [...]

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The US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) on Thursday sanctioned three Lebanese individuals for involvement in corruption in Lebanon. The designated individuals are two businessmen, Jihad al-Arab and Dany Khoury, and a member of parliament, Jamil Sayyed. The individuals named by OFAC were added to the Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list, which bars US [...]

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The UN Human Rights Office, represented by spokesperson Marta Hurtado, deemed on Tuesday that Libyan security forces had used “unnecessary and disproportionate” force to detain African migrants when those that had attempted to escape were fatally shot. The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) requested an inquiry into the violence perpetrated by [...]

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The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), an independent humanitarian organization operating in Libya, raised concern on Friday over the mass arrests and detention of more than 500 migrants in Tripoli by Libyan authorities. Libya’s Interior Ministry stated that security forces have carried out a major  operation against criminals, liquor and drug dealers, and undocumented people in [...]

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Amnesty International released a report Thursday stating that migrants and refugees detained in Libyan detention centers face harrowing sexual violence from guards, including being forced to trade sex for clean food and water. The report is based on interviews with 53 refugees and migrants who were intercepted in the central Mediterranean and disembarked in western [...]

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Policy decisions of EU member states and Libya caused deaths along the central Mediterranean route, according to a report from the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights Wednesday. The report covers the period from January 2019 to December 2020. It is primarily based on interviews with migrants, government officials and relevant experts. [...]

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A judge in Italy’s Catania in the Sicily region on Friday ordered that Italian Senator Matteo Salvini will not stand trial for refusing to allow migrants to disembark from a coastguard ship in July 2019. The right-wing leader had been accused of kidnapping the migrants. From June 2018 to September 2019, Salvini, the leader of far-right [...]

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