Afriqiyah

Afriqiyah Airways flight 8U771 crashed during landing at Tripoli international airport early this morning. The flight was on its way from Johannesburg, South Africa to Tripoli. The route is scheduled to operated with an Afriqiyah Airbus A330. Unofficial numbers report that 104 people were killed during the air crash.

According to the website of Afriqiyah 93 passengers and 11 crew members were on board.

A boat carrying around 80 migrants to Italy was intercepted on Monday by Libyan patrol boat which brought them back to North Africa, according to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).

UNHCR spokesperson Laura Boldrini said the migrants were mainly Eritreans and Somalis who had the right to request political asylum.

“These people have been transferred to a Libyan detention center and it’s unclear how long they will have to remain there,” said Boldrini.

According to the UN spokesperson, the Libyan patrol crossed into Maltese waters to intercept the migrants before they had a chance to ask for asylum in Europe.

Boldrini said the episode “suggests that asylum seekers crossing the Mediterranean have even fewer guarantees than we supposed”

Italy’s push-back immigration policy is based on an agreement with Libya allowing migrants intercepted in international waters to be sent back to the North African country.

The policy has resulted in a 90% drop in arrivals since it was launched in May but it has come under heavy fire from the centre-left opposition in Italy, the Catholic Church, humanitarian organisations and the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR, who say Libya does not have a system in place to deal with asylum claims. Source: (Lifeinitaly)