A massive influx of refugees from Libya, where ISIS extremists have been gaining ground, can be halted or at least reduced by extending “targeted ant-terrorist strikes” into the coastal area, said the Italian FM.
“We don’t have months and
months [to sort this out]. The double risk of the advance of the
Islamic State group in Libya and the waves of migrants means we
are in a race against the clock,” Italian foreign minister Paolo
Gentiloni told the Corriere della Sera.
Gentiloni said part of the solution could be “targeted
anti-terrorist strikes” against the ISIS-controlled
strongholds along the Libyan coast. “We need to take care of
this emergency not as a single country, but as a union,” he
said.
He also called for a tighter collaboration with partners in the
regions “so that refugees can be welcomed in neighboring
countries.”
The quest to reach the safe waters of Italy via the turbulent
waters of the Mediterranean ended up in tragedy earlier this
week, when Muslim travelers threw 12 Christians overboard during
one of the crossings. The Italian authorities arrested 15 people
believed to have been responsible.
Hundreds of Libyans died making the crossing this week alone.
Just last Sunday 400 migrants drowned when their vessel capsized
off Libya coast.
In the most recent incident, early Friday morning, the Italian
Coast Guard saved 70 people off the island of Lampedusa.
Traveling a long journey on a rubber dingy, the refugees had to
be stretchered off to shore as they suffered severe burns in a
gas cylinder explosion.
“[The refugees] told us that they were in one of the places
where traffickers hold migrants and refugees before placing them
on boats, and a gas cylinder exploded and killed several people
and injured many others,” Barbara Moinario of the United
Nations High Commission For Refugees explained. “The
traffickers would not allow them to leave and reach the hospital
so they didn’t get treatment for a few days, and then they were
put on a boat, in fact a rubber dinghy.”
READ
MORE: ISIS will ‘stop at nothing’ to strengthen presence in Libya
– UN
As ISIS advances in Libya gain pace, an estimated 1,000 refugees
have perished crossing the sea since the beginning of this year.
That’s compared to just 17 during the same period of 2014,
according to the UN refugee agency.
“Those who do make it pose a threat to the European
population,” said Giovanni Muraca, a local councilor in the
port of Reggion Calabria. Claiming that the authorities are
overwhelmed by the number, he said many are being treated for
infectious deceases in reception centers before they are sent
off.
Italian authorities brought ashore an estimated 13,000 migrants
this week alone. The European affairs ministers of France,
Germany and Slovakia joined the Italian calls calling for a
“resolute European answer.”
“By the end of May, Europe for the first time will have a
comprehensive holistic policy on migration,” the European
Union’s Commissioner for Migration Dimitris Avramopoulos said
Friday.
Despite the dire threat posed by a flood of refugees to Europe
across the Mediterranean, not everyone believes that bombing IS
positions could help resolve the problem.
“I think what [Gentiloni] has done is mix a number of
issues,” Admiral Lord West of Spithead, a former First Sea
Lord, told The Times. “There is a real risk in so many ways
… but targeted airstrikes? Who would you target? With what?
This is loose talk.”
Yet the threat to Europe remains real not only through the influx
of people seeking safe haven, but also Islamic State fighters who
earlier threatened to enter Europe across the Mediterranean as
refugees. The plans, analyzed by British anti-terrorism think
tank Quilliam in February, outline a possible strategy to
illegally ferry fighters across the sea from Libya into southern
Europe, into ports such as Italy’s southernmost island of
Lampedusa.
READ MORE:
ISIS plans to invade Europe through Libya – report
Amid a chaotic situation in Libya three years after the US-led
NATO operation toppled Colonel Gaddafi, the Islamist Libya Dawn
and Operation Dignity factions, headed by Lt Gen. Khalifa Haftar,
have been battling for power in Libya, creating a separate
government and army rival to internationally-recognized Abdullah
al-Thani’s parliament in Tobruk.
A third power gaining ground in Libya is ISIS, with at least
three terrorist groups in north African country swearing
allegiance to the Islamic State this year. According to US
estimates between 1,000 to 3,000 militants are now fighting for
the Islamic State cause in Libya and carrying out atrocities,
such as beheading of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians.
Since the start of the year, ISIS carried out a number of attacks
and has captured the Mabruk oilfield south of Sirte.