The Libyan Coast Guard is organizationally part of the

Libyan Navy Libyan Navy ( ar, قوات البحرية الليبية) is the branch of the Libyan military responsible for naval warfare. Established in November 1962, Libyan Navy has been headed by Admiral Mansour Bader, Chief of Staff of the Libyan Naval Fo ...

, although it operates as a proxy force of the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been ...

in order to prevent migrants from reaching the EU's borders. As of 2015, the Libyan Coast Guard has over 1,000 personnel. Since 2015, it received $455 million from the European Union. The Libyan Coast Guard is involved in

human trafficking Human trafficking is the trade of humans for the purpose of forced labour, sexual slavery, or commercial sexual exploitation for the trafficker or others. This may encompass providing a spouse in the context of forced marriage, or the extr ...

, modern slavery, torture, and other human rights violations.

History

The foundation of the Libyan Coast Guard dates back to 1970 when the previously separate customs and harbor police were joined in a single command within the

and under the Ministry of Defense. In 2006–2008 the Coast Guard fleet was renewed and equipped with 'stealth' cruising speed PV30-LS patrol boats from the Croatian shipyard Adria-Mar. In 2017 the coast guard were criticised for failing to respond to ten vessels in distress. During the ongoing

European migrant crisis The 2015 European migrant crisis, also known internationally as the Syrian refugee crisis, was a period of significantly increased movement of refugees and migrants into Europe in 2015, when 1.3 million people came to the continent to request ...

, Libyan Coast Guard intercepts refugee and migrant boats travelling across the

Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the ...

, per a funding agreement reached with

Frontex The European Border and Coast Guard Agency, also known as Frontex (from French: ''Frontières extérieures'' for "external borders"), is an agency of the European Union headquartered in Warsaw, Poland, exercising in coordination with the border ...

, the European border agency. The interceptions have been criticised as "worsening the crisis" and in November 2021 were reported to result in 27,500 people being returned to detention centres. In May 2021 Salvatore Quinci, the mayor Mazaro del Vallo reported the second recent incident where fishermen were shot at by the coast guard, the later incident non fatality injuring one man. In July 2021 the Libyan Coast Guard was criticised for chasing and then shooting at a migrant boat. Later in July 2021, a former senior Libyan police officer accused the coast guard of robbing people, and of being people smugglers. In November 2021, the coast guard threatened the German humanitarian vessel ''Sea Watch 4''.

References

External links

Libyan Coast Guard page on the Libya Observer
{{Coast guards Libyan Navy Coast guards 1970 establishments in Africa Organizations based in Tripoli

History

See also

References

External links