British warships to intercept migrants off Libyan shore

من طرف brokenpen82 الجمعة 18 مارس - 12:01

British warships could be fighting back people smugglers within sight of the Libyan coast within months, under plans presented by David Cameron.

The Prime Minister told his counterparts at a summit in Brussels he wanted to expand a current EU naval force operating in the central Mediterranean to stop hundreds of thousands of migrants crossing from Libya to Europe.

Angela Merkel’s €6 billion aid-for-deportations deal was in serious jeopardy as leaders warned Turkish “blackmail” risked violating international law. Talks were set to grind through the night before a Turkish breakfast this morning with Ahmet Davutoglu, the country’s wily prime minister.

The redefined mission would involve more British ships and other assets such as helicopters being deployed in the “territorial and internal” waters within “several kilometres off the Libyan coastline”, according to a UK government source.

That would lead to the British ships “taking measures to dispose of vessels or to make them inoperable within that remit, within the coastline of Libya rather than on the high seas”, working closely with the Libyan coastguard.

“The PM would like to see the vessels being destroyed as close to where they set off from as possible to send out that very clear deterrent message.”
British warships to intercept migrants off Libyan shore Libya2_3596728b

British warships to intercept migrants off Libyan shore Libya2_3596728b

Royal Marines from HMS Bulwark help rescue migrants stranded on a boat thirty miles off the Libyan coast

The Prime Minister is worried about a return of mass migration on Libya to Italy – a route where more than 6000 people have drowned since 2014, a sixteen times more deadly than that to Greece.
HMS Enterprise, a Royal Navy survey vessel, is part of an EU naval mission known as Operation Sophia that has so far detained 90 vessels and arrested 53 people smugglers.
Britain wants to take advantage of the new Libyan government and get an agreement to return the migrants to Libya, rather than take them to Italy.

Under the highly complex “dirty deal”, Turkey will receive aid including £500 million from Britain, as well as visa free travel from June and progress on EU membership talks.
Migrants in Greece will be deported within hours of landing back to Turkey, while 72,000 Syrians will be sent from Turkish camps to new homes in the EU.
Dalia Grybauskaite, the Lithuanian leader, said the plan "will be very difficult to implement and it is on the edge of international law."
British warships to intercept migrants off Libyan shore Libya3_3596727b

British warships to intercept migrants off Libyan shore Libya3_3596727b

A convoy transports migrants, who were abandoned by traffickers in a remote desert area near the border with Libya, to Dongola earlier this month

Antonio Costa, the Portuguese prime minister, warned: “We cannot put faith in an agreement that seeks to deliver more than it can. Because otherwise, when in a few months the Balkan route is closed and a route through the Black Sea or through Lampedusa opens up, then don't stand here asking 'Why did it not work?'.
Xavier Bettel, Luxembourg's prime minister, said: “You can't just put aside the Geneva convention".

Britain will not take part in the Syrian scheme, and Mr Cameron is understood to be increasingly frustrated with Jean-Claude Juncker’s “grandiose” migrant schemes. An EU plan to rehome 160,000 migrants from Greece and Italy around the EU by quota has moved 937 people since September.
“He thought that was basically unimplementable and a bloody stupid policy that provided perverse incentives and was never going to work,” said a source. “It is demonstrated now that it isn’t working.”

Abdel al-Sisi, the Egyptian president, warned of a new wave of refugees “two or three times bigger than it is now” hitting Europe if the Middle East is further destabilised.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/12197320/British-warships-to-intercept-migrants-off-Libyan-shore.html