Libya’s coastguard intercepted about 400 Europe-bound migrants off the country’s Mediterranean coast over the past two days, and brought them to detention centres near the capital Tripoli.

At least five migrants have died and seven others went missing when the coast guard returned scores of migrants to Tripoli, the UN migration agency (IOM) said.

More than 50 refugees from Eritrea and Sudan disembarked in Libya’s capital Wednesday after spending hours onboard a coast guard vessel, the UN migration agency said, and were immediately detained on arrival in Tripoli.

The Libyan coast guard rescued 280 migrants in distress in the Mediterranean Sea on Thursday and diverted them to the shores of the North African country, only to have them banned from disembarking, the UN migration agency said.

Almost 1,000 refugees and migrants have been intercepted at sea and returned to war-ravaged Libya this year already, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

Libyan coast guards found more than 150 migrants in national waters and brought them back to the shore, the United Nation’s International Organization for Migration said Thursday.

Libya’s navy said Saturday it had rescued 205 migrants in an operation off the coast of Tripoli. The rescue took place on Friday, with 158 men, 33 women and 14 children taken from three inflatable boats off the coast of Zawiyah, 45 kilometres west of the capital, a navy statement …

On 11 November 2019, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch submitted a joint third-party intervention to the European Court of Human Rights in a case involving Libya’s abuses against migrants during operations at sea and upon return to the country in November 2017. 

The Libyan embassy in Valetta has refuted news about striking a secret deal with Malta on migrants’ interception.

Malta’s armed forces have started cooperating with Libya’s coastguard to turn back migrant boats heading into Malta’s search and rescue zone, Times of Malta newspaper reported on Sunday, citing a secret government deal.