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Italian boats to patrol Libyan waters to curb migrant flow

Rome: The Italian government is hoping a new deal with Libya will hold back the thousands of migrants who pack on to unseaworthy vessels to try to cross the Mediterranean every year to reach Italy.

After years of delicate negotiations, six Italian police patrol boats, manned by mixed Italian and Libyan crews, will monitor the Libyan coastline, in Libyan waters, on the lookout for traffickers setting out with their human cargo.

The patrols will “save many human lives and dismantle criminal gangs”, said the Italian Interior Minister Giuliano Amato who signed the deal on Saturday in Tripoli with the Libyan Foreign Minister, Abdel-Rahman Shalqam. “Patrolling on the high seas is more effective for rescue than for deterrent,” added Mr. Amato.

About 16,500 migrants, many from Saharan and sub-Saharan Africa, are believed to have sailed from Libya to Italy this year, many arriving at the island of Lampedusa. Existing deals to train Libyan police are believed to have helped reduce the traffic, from 21,000 in 2006.

Mr. Amato said he hoped future cuts would match those achieved in the Adriatic after Italy and Albania set up joint patrols to cut down on migrant trafficking. Arrests on the crossing from Albania to Italy fell from 46,481 in 1999 to 58 by 2003.

The Libya deal is the culmination of numerous visits by Italian officials to the Libyan leader, Colonel Muammar Qadhafi, and is the latest episode in the sometimes uncomfortable relationship between Italy and its former colony. Italian officials have suspected that Libya has turned the flow of migrants on and off in the past to push Italy into deals. Mr. Qadhafi has, meanwhile, written the outline for a £25-million English-language film, Years of Torment, about the horrors of Italy’s colonial rule in Libya.

Partly in an effort to overcome Libyan resentment, Italy has discussed building, for free, a highway across the country. Mr. Amato said the new deal also envisaged Rome assisting Libya in talks with the European Union to organise funds for the control of Libya’s land borders.

“Handling the southern frontiers of Libya is, however, a much trickier task than sea patrols, given the instability in neighbouring countries, and it remains to be seen whether the EU is up to the task,” said Ferruccio Pastore, an analyst and deputy director at the International Centre for Policy Studies, a Rome thinktank. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2007

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