The EU is to give another €5 million ($5.62 million) to the Stabilisation Facility for Libya (SFL) to improve basic public services, its ambassador Bettina Muscheidt announced today in Tripoli. She made the announcement following a meeting of the SFL’s board today in Tripoli’s Corinthia Hotel.

The UN Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution on Monday to extend authorization for another year so as to allow the European Union to seize illegal weapons on the high seas off the coast of Libya.

A high level African Union delegation wrapped up its four-day mission to Libya by meeting armed forces commander-in-chief Khalifa Hafter in Benghazi.

A local source from al-Hereish hospital in Libya’s Derna has confirmed the death of the leader of the Shura Council of Mujahedeen in Derna abu Mus’ab al-Shaaria, known as al-Amir, in airstrikes launched by Egypt in the city over the past few days, Afrigate News reported.

The Libyan coastguard “created mayhem” and recklessly endangered lives by threatening migrants with guns before looting their boats, the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) group said on Thursday.

At least 34 migrants, most of them toddlers, drowned today, as coastguard boats and other vessels tried to save hundreds of others packed into boats off the coast of Libya, rescuers said.

At its second meeting, held today in Brussels, the Libya Quartet – the UN, African Union (AU), Arab League and the EU – agreed that there could be “a limited set of amendments” to the Libya Political Agreement (LA). These should be facilitated by UNSMIL but Libya-led.

To counter illegal migration it is imperative “to concentrate on the south”, Presidency Council (PC) head Faiez Serraj told Italy’s interior minister today.

Libya’s foreign minister, Mohammed Sayala, has named Khalifa Haftar, the controversial chief of the self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA), as the head of the country’s army – provided that he recognises the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) as the only authority.

Migrant rescue boat NGOs have denied claims by an Italian prosecutor that they are in collusion with Libyan human traffickers.