“Every Case Is Different From The Other”

Two new pieces of evidence for the Ghost Boat files.

As we look at how to trace the whereabouts of the Ghost Boat—where it may have been, who would have been responsible for rescuing those on board or documenting wreckage, where any reports would have been filed, and so on, the tortuously complicated nature of Libyan infrastructure is becoming apparent.

But each additional morsel of information we gather allows us to do a better job of understanding what we’re all looking for.

This Just In

Today we’re adding two new pieces of evidence to the stack. First, an interview with Colonel Mohamed Younis, who heads up investigations at the Libyan Coast Guard and is based in Tripoli. There is not a great of detail in his conversation with us, but he does paint a picture of the scarce resources available to the Libyan operations.

Here are some choice quotes:

On the numbers of bodies recovered by the coast guard:

“Many actually. Sometimes, just a few individuals — other times we find about 10, and during the Libyan revolution there were hundreds.”

On the role the media plays in forcing the government to act:

“At some point Italian newspapers highlighted the role of coast guards in reducing illegal immigration by 80%, and they awarded us six boats.”

Second up is a monster of a document from the Libyan Red Crescent—328 pages, in Arabic, documenting their operations in 2014. We are currently working to translate the sections we believe are relevant to our investigation, which will be useful in conjunction with our interview with senior official Malik Marsit. But we’re asking readers who have experience with Arabic to take a look and see if they can find anything that may be of interest.

Onward.