Somali government efforts to evacuate a large number of Somali migrants from Libya hit a snag after the delegation sent there was unable to persuade migrants to abandon the dangerous sea journey to Europe and instead return to Somalia.

Members of the delegation say the migrants have told them they have suffered during the journey to Libya and feel that they have “nothing else to lose.” Officials say the migrants are determined to make a final attempt to reach European shores.

The delegation arrived in Tripoli Monday, and its members say they have visited detention camps and received some migrants at the Somalia embassy, but so far only 11 people have expressed an interest in returning to Somalia. The number of Somalis who have migrated to Libya is estimated to be between 5,000-6,000, officials say.

While the vast majority of the Somali migrants in Libya are being held in areas controlled by militias that were too dangerous for the delegation to visit, nonetheless they say the majority of the people they have met made it clear that they don’t fear taking more risks to reach Europe.

False hope

Mariam Yassin is the Special Envoy for Migrants and Children’s Rights of Somalia and was among the delegation. She says lack of access to many of the Somali migrants is a factor, as they are held in areas not controlled by the Libyan government. But the main the reason given by people for not returning, she says, is that migrants are desperate to reach Europe.

“I met this woman who said, I was here in Libya for less than two years, I spent $18,000, I’m not going back to my mum with nothing, I’m not going back,’” Yassin explained.

She says the proximity between Libya and Europe gives people false hope. From Tripoli the lights of Lampedusa, Italy, are visible, and that gives migrants hope that they can reach Europe.

“They say they have suffered enough and want to take the last chance,” Yassin told VOA Somali.

Yassin said when migrants are told that there are alternatives to the risk, and that they could have the same life in their own country, there is a doubt in their eyes that the risk they are taking is not worth it, but they are determined to reach their target.

“We can’t force them, but we’ll give them awareness and encouragement to return,” Yassin says.

Beatings, torture

When the Somali delegation arrived in Tripoli on Monday, they met several Somalis who lived in terrible conditions, having just been released by the smugglers.

One of the men released said he was beaten on his back, chest and legs. He was shaking and said one of his eyes lost sight. But when the Somali Ambassador to the European Union Ali Said Faqi offered him the chance to return, the man who could barely speak grinned and said, “Insha Allah, I will either return or continue my ambition, it will be one of those.”

Ahmed Abdikarim Nur, commissioner of refugees and internally displaced persons of the Somali government said 99 percent of the people who are traveling are young people, and the youngsters are particularly reluctant to go back.

“They feel they spent all their parent’s wealth, and possibly they did not tell their parents when they started traveling to Libya, so they feel they have nowhere to return to, they are traumatized,” he said.

​Unaccompanied children

Yassin was particularly documenting the situation of unaccompanied children who are willing to return. She said she only persuaded two of them, one 16 years old and the other 17. They have been in Libya for a year and half. She said both were traumatized and would not give a lot of information about their ordeal.

“I tried to speak to the 16 year old but he said, ‘Let us talk on the way to Somalia,’” she said.

The other teenager showed a bit more composure and told the Somali officials that they were tortured while in the hands of smugglers and traffickers.

“They are woken up in the morning, their day starts with insults [by smugglers], they are taken out, beaten, they use electric shocks on their legs, they are sprayed with water and are starved,” she said. “Some vomit blood because of the beating, some die.”

She said the case of the unaccompanied children is particularly worrying. She said some of the children lie about their ages so that the International Organization of Migration and UNHCR won’t identify them and contact their families to get permission to put them under their special protection.

If they are identified as minors and the organizations contact their families they will have no chance of boarding those boats, they don’t want that to happen so they lie about their age,” Yassin said.

​Greater risks

Commissioner Nur says the risks people are taking are “beyond imagination.”

“First of all there is no certainty that when they leave Somalia they will reach here Tripoli alive,” he said. “Even if they reach, it will be after they have been sold and resold two or three times like an animal, they will have been beaten, they will have lost their well-being, dignity and possibly their lives.”

While the Somali delegation members were in Libya, a migrant truck flipped over near Bani Walid town Wednesday killing more than 20 migrants mainly from Somalia and Eritrea. One of the Somali migrants who had been held in Bani Walid said he knew many of the migrants traveling in the truck.

He said he knew at least seven Somalis who died in the incident. He said 260 migrants were on board the truck when it flipped over. He said he was told the death toll is higher than reported by media.

As the delegation appealed to the Somali migrants to take the chance to go home, the beaten man they met at the Embassy was still uncommitted about returning.

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Since the International Criminal Court began collecting material three months ago for a possible war crimes case involving Afghanistan, it has gotten a staggering 1.17 million statements from Afghans who say they were victims.

The statements include accounts of alleged atrocities not only by groups like the Taliban and the Islamic State, but also involving Afghan Security Forces and government-affiliated warlords, the U.S.-led coalition, and foreign and domestic spy agencies, said Abdul Wadood Pedram of the Human Rights and Eradication of Violence Organization.

Based in part on the many statements, ICC judges in The Hague would then have to decide whether to seek a war crimes investigation. It’s uncertain when that decision will be made.

​Millions of possible victims

The statements were collected between Nov. 20, 2017, and Jan. 31, 2018, by organizations based in Europe and Afghanistan and sent to the ICC, Pedram said. Because one statement might include multiple victims and one organization might represent thousands of victim statements, the number of Afghans seeking justice from the ICC could be several million.

“It is shocking there are so many,” Pedram said, noting that in some instances, whole villages were represented. “It shows how the justice system in Afghanistan is not bringing justice for the victims and their families.”

The ICC did not give details about the victims or those providing the information.

“I have the names of the organizations, but because of the security issues, we don’t want to name them because they will be targeted,” said Pedram, whose group is based in Kabul.

Many of the representations include statements involving multiple victims, which could be the result of suicide bombings, targeted killings or airstrikes, he said.

​Fear for safety

Among those alleging war crimes is a man who asked The Associated Press to be identified only by his first name, Shoaib, because he fears for his safety.

Shoaib said his father, Naimatullah, was on a bus in Dawalat Yar district in Afghanistan’s central Ghor Province in 2014 when a band of gunmen stopped it and two other buses, forced the passengers off and told them to hand over their identity cards. The 14 Shiites among them were separated from the rest and killed, one by one, he said.

The slayings outraged the country. A Taliban commander was soon arrested and brought before the media, but no news about a trial or punishment was ever reported, said Shoaib, who is in his 20s.

Displaying a photo of the man he believes killed his father, Shoaib said he doesn’t go to the authorities for information about the incident because the commander had connections with the police and the local government administration.

Shoaib is still afraid.

“Please don’t say where I live, or show my face,” he implored a reporter. “What if they find me? There is no protection in Afghanistan,” he said.

“Everybody knows that they have connection in the government,” he added. “I think in Afghanistan, if you have money, then you can give it to anyone, anywhere, to do anything.”

Several powerful warlords, many of whom came to power after the collapse of the Taliban in 2001 following the U.S.-led intervention, are among those alleged to have carried out war crimes, said Pedram, who also is cautious about releasing any names.

After receiving death threats last year, Pedram fled Kabul briefly and now keeps a lower profile, no longer speaking to local media.

“The warlords are all here. You have to be very careful,” he said. “In the morning, I kiss my little son goodbye, I kiss my wife goodbye because I don’t know what will happen to me and when, or if I will see them again.”

​World’s criminal court

Established in 2002, the ICC is the world’s first permanent court set up to prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. The ICC can only investigate any crimes in Afghanistan after May 2003, when the country ratified the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the court.

Former President Bill Clinton signed the treaty, but President George W. Bush renounced the signature, citing fears that Americans would be unfairly prosecuted for political reasons.

In November, when ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda sought judicial authorization to begin the investigation, she said the court had been looking into possible war crimes in Afghanistan since 2006.

Bensouda said in November that “there is a reasonable basis to believe” that crimes against humanity and war crimes were committed by the Taliban as well as the Haqqani network. She also said there was evidence that the Afghan National Security Forces, Afghan National Police and its spy agency, known as the NDS, committed war crimes.

Bensouda also said evidence existed of war crimes committed “by members of the United States armed forces on the territory of Afghanistan, and by members of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in secret detention facilities in Afghanistan,” as well as in countries that had signed on to the Rome Statute. The secret detention facilities were operated mostly between 2003 and 2004, she said.

Breaking through impunity

It was the first time that Bensouda has targeted Americans for alleged war crimes. Bensouda said an investigation under the auspices of the international tribunal could break through what she called “near total impunity” in Afghanistan.

The prosecutor’s formal application to the court set up a possible showdown with Washington. While the U.S. is not a member state of the ICC, its citizens can be charged with crimes committed in countries that are members.

At the time of Bensouda’s announcement, a Pentagon spokesman said the U.S. Defense Department does not accept that such an investigation of U.S. personnel is warranted. The U.S. State Department has said it opposes the court’s involvement in Afghanistan.

​Justice for a loved one

Another Afghan who went to the ICC is Hussain Razaee, whose fiancee, Najiba, was among 30 people killed in July when a Taliban suicide attacker rammed a car bomb into a bus carrying employees from the Ministry of Mines.

For months, Razaee said he contemplated suicide. He had spent two years convincing Najiba’s parents to allow them to marry, and they had finally agreed. Unlike most Afghan couples, theirs was not to be an arranged marriage.

“I lost the person I loved,” he said.

Razaee said he went to the ICC because he wants those responsible to be punished, even if a peace deal with the Taliban is reached.

“I am pursuing this because I want the ICC to record these cases so that if there is a peace agreement, the Taliban leaders will be required to identify the people behind the killings,” Razaee said.

“I don’t trust the international community to bring any of these warlords or Taliban to justice, but if an international legal body rules according to the law, then the government could be forced to enforce it,” he said.
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Russia’s communications providers on Thursday blocked access to the website of opposition leader Alexei Navalny on orders of the state communications watchdog.

Navalny announced the move via his Twitter account, which was still accessible. Users going to the website were told it could not be reached.

The agency, Roskomnadzor, had demanded that Navalny remove a video alleging that Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Prikhodko received lavish hospitality from billionaire Oleg Deripaska.

Deripaska rejected the report and won a court ruling that ordered Navalny to remove the investigation as an unlawful intrusion into the tycoon’s privacy. Navalny refused, and appealed the ruling.

A statement Thursday from Deripaska’s Basic Element company said: “Mr. Deripaska’s claim is to protect his right to privacy, and has nothing to do with any political struggle between Mr. Navalny and his political opponents.”

Navalny’s investigation drew from the social media account of a woman who claims to have had an affair with Deripaska.

The woman, who calls herself Nastya Rybka, has written a book about her work as an escort and said on Russian television last year she had been hired by a modeling agency to spend time at Deripaska’s yacht.

Instagram on Thursday had removed some of Rybka’s posts following Roskomnadzor’s request, but a YouTube video of Navalny’s investigation that has generated over 5 million views remained available.

Rybka posted several videos in 2016 showing Deripaska on his yacht talking with Prikhodko. In one snippet, Deripaska explains to the woman why relations between Russia and the United States are so bad.

Deripaska has been linked to U.S. President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, who has been indicted in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election.

Navalny, the most vocal critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, wanted to run against him in Russia’s March 18 presidential election, but was barred because of a fraud conviction in a case that many see as politically motivated.
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The collapse of 13-month-long talks overnight Wednesday to restore a power-sharing government in Northern Ireland might force the British government to seek emergency powers and rule the province directly from London for the first time since 2007, acknowledge British officials.

The move, which Protestant politicians in Northern Ireland are urging, would risk clouding relations between Britain and Ireland and complicate already fraught Brexit negotiations between London and Dublin.

Direct rule also would upend the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which ended three decades of sectarian conflict that left 3,600 people dead, risking a violent backlash from die-hard Irish Republican Army militiamen. Both Britain and the Irish Republic are guarantors of the peace agreement.

Failed talks

Talks between Northern Ireland’s two main parties, the Democratic Unionist Party and the IRA’s political wing, Sinn Fein, fell apart only hours after Prime Minister Theresa May visited Belfast. During her mid-week trip to Northern Ireland, May said she was confident there would be a breakthrough in the negotiations between the mainly Catholic Sinn Fein, which is in favor of a united Ireland, and the mainly pro-British Protestant DUP.

The fact that the talks fell apart so soon after May’s visit is being seen widely as a blow to her authority.

Britain’s Northern Ireland minister, Karen Bradley, said London now had “uncomfortable decisions” to make. The British government’s only immediate legal option is to call for new elections in Northern Ireland, but it is coming under pressure from the DUP not to do so and to opt instead for direct rule.

Theresa May’s minority Conservative government in London relies on a handful of DUP lawmakers in the Westminster parliament to survive. May also needs to avoid angering the Irish Republic, however, in order to smooth out differences with Dublin connected to Brexit, Britain’s planned exit from the European Union.

Dublin has questioned publicly the impartiality of the British government in the political stalemate in Northern Ireland because of its need for DUP support in the House of Commons in London.

Internal clashes

Northern Ireland’s parties clashed Thursday over who was to blame for the failure to reach a deal to restore a power-sharing administration to govern the province. The British province has been without a devolved administration — a key part of the 1998 peace deal — for more than a year since the Irish nationalist Sinn Fein withdrew from the power-sharing government with the DUP after a dispute erupted over an energy scheme amid allegations of fraud.

The latest round of talks between the archrivals fell apart over a sharp disagreement on additional rights for Irish-language speakers and legal protections for the use of Gaelic. Sinn Fein accuses the DUP of sabotaging the talks, a charge rejected by their adversaries, who blame them for making too many demands and refusing to compromise.

Irish Republic officials are warning London that they are opposed to the re-imposition of direct London rule of Northern Ireland. But British involvement in Northern Ireland’s governance is now “inevitable,” says a former British Cabinet minister. Theresa Villiers, who was Britain’s Northern Ireland secretary between 2012 and 2016, said “time has run out” and London will have to “pass legislation to set a budget and sort out various other key issues.”

Brexit complicates matters

Relations between London and Dublin are already severely strained over Brexit and the possibility of a reintroduction of a so-called “hard border” involving tariffs and security checks between the south and north of the island of Ireland following Britain’s departure from the EU.

As news broke of the collapse of the talks, the Irish Republic’s Taoiseach (prime minister) Leo Varadkar, maintained that “power-sharing and working together are the only way forward for Northern Ireland.”

He dismissed a call by DUP leader Arlene Foster for London to resort to some form of direct rule. For the British government to do that, it would have to pass legislation giving it emergency powers to take over the running of the province.

In her statement, Foster said it was incumbent on London to intervene “to set a budget and start making policy decisions about our schools, hospitals and infrastructure.”

Ireland’s foreign affairs minister, Simon Coveney, said the collapse of the talks “was not expected” and was “hugely disappointing.” He told Irish broadcaster RTÉ he believed there was “no appetite to move toward direct rule.”

British and Irish officials were scrambling Thursday to try to salvage something from the mess and get the province’s politicians back to the negotiating table, but DUP leader Foster said there is “no current prospect” of renewed discussions leading to the re-establishment of Northern Ireland’s government. And the angry recriminations flying between the parties suggest she’s likely right.

Direct rule would undermine the delicate balance between Northern Ireland’s nationalists and Unionists at a time there already are fears that sectarian conflict could be reignited because of Brexit. Northern Ireland’s most senior police officer warned recently the re-introduction of a ‘hard border’ complete with frontier checks and security installations would be seen as “fair game” for attack by die-hard Irish republicans.

George Hamilton, the chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, said last week that a hard border would have to be patrolled 24 hours a day and would put his officers’ lives in greater danger from hard-core paramilitary groups who have never approved of the Good Friday Agreement. He described as “severe” the threat from the New IRA and other dissident groups opposed to the peace settlement in Northern Ireland.

“The last thing we would want is any infrastructure around the border because there is something symbolic about it and it becomes a target for violent dissident republicans,” he said. Last year, there were five serious attacks by dissident republicans on Northern Ireland police officers, one in Belfast that left two policemen wounded.

 
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