Refugees off the Libyan coast (archive image)
Photo: Olmo Calvo / AP
The Libyan Coast Guard has intercepted almost a thousand refugees en route to Europe and brought them back to Libya in the past 48 hours.
This is reported by the Libyan office of the International Organization for Migration.
Accordingly, the people were detained off the west coast of the country, from where they wanted to flee to Europe by boat.
About a thousand men, women and children tried to flee Libya "and were ultimately detained under appalling conditions," said IOM spokeswoman Safa Msehli.
The organization said IOM teams were on site to provide necessary assistance to the refugees.
Volunteers from the Open Arms organization announced that they had rescued dozens of people from the Mediterranean within one day.
The organization announced on Twitter on Monday that there were a total of 219 people on board the "Open Arms".
These include more than 50 minors and two pregnant women.
Rescuers took 40 people on board on Saturday
The rescuers of the Spanish organization took almost 40 refugees on board in the central Mediterranean last Saturday.
Two days earlier, the helpers had left the port of the Sicilian city of Syracuse on their 82nd mission.
At the moment, several organizations keep going out to the central Mediterranean to come to the aid of migrants in mostly small boats.
Often people from the coast of Libya embark on the mostly dangerous journey across the sea.
According to the Italian Ministry of the Interior, more than 6,400 refugees arrived in Italy in boats this year.
In the previous year there were just under 2,800 at the same time.
According to the International Organization for Migration, at least 1200 people died last year trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea to Europe on often unseaworthy boats.
Libya is one of the main transit routes for asylum seekers.
However, numerous refugees are intercepted and brought back to the North African country, which has been in chaos since the violent overthrow of long-time ruler Muammar al-Gaddafi in 2011.
Human rights organizations denounce the repatriation of migrants intercepted at sea to Libya.
Among other things, they complain about the catastrophic conditions in Libyan refugee camps and the incarceration of migrants in irregular prisons.
ptz / AFP / dpa
