Interviewing Officials in The Libyan Coast Guard
Colonel Mohamed Younes is the director of the investigation office of Libyan Coast Guard main office in Tripoli. This interview was conducted by Mohamed Lagha, and has been translated from Arabic.
This post is a piece of evidence in our open investigation into the disappearance of a group of at least 243 refugees in 2014. We’re asking for your help to find them: Please take the time leave notes, responses, highlight important information or dig in to see what else you can discover.
Do you have any records of the numbers of refugees’ bodies washing ashore on June 28, 2014?
Well for this particular date that you have mentioned, I have to go back to the archives of the national coast guard, because honestly I do not remember what happened exactly on that specific date.
Have you had any experience of rescuing refugees?
Yes, of course. Since the establishment of the coast guard, most of our work has been about combating illegal immigration.
Can you recall where exactly you usually find bodies of, or boats used by, refugees?
Actually most of them are found in the area between Zliten and the western borders.
Have you ever had bodies washing ashore?
Yes… Many actually. Sometimes, just a few individuals—other times we find about 10, and during the Libyan revolution there were hundreds. The regime then was supporting illegal immigration so…
How do you deal with these bodies?
Right now we suffer from a lack of resources for extracting the bodies from water. As far as experience and knowledge go, we have people who know how to take care of bodies in the water, but the lack of amenities such as nets, plastic bags… all these are not available.
Do you document any identification with the bodies?
The issue is that immigrants never leave their country with an ID or any document that may facilitate tracking their countries of origin, so that when caught by the local authorities they can not be sent back home.
Is this in general, or is it just some immigrants who do that?
Yes, most of the time it is done that way unless they are traveling in normal boats, or escaping something then they do have their IDs and passports with them.
Do you get phone calls?
No actually, mostly we receive alert messages from Italian and Maltese Coastal guards who usually communicate with us via fax. We do track the location of immigrants, and go if it is in the Libyan water, of course. Usually when it is not we do not go.
Do you document those operations?
Yes we do. We register all the operations and now, according to what I have on the 12th of July 2015 at 3a.m., a boat of illegal immigrants was rescued by our national coast guard, north of Millita, and it had 94 people on it. This happens all the time.
Can you check for me the date of 28th June 2014?
This is not the year 2014, so I have to check the other archives.
Do you document boats when you hear that they sank? What are your sources?
Well our sources are numerous, fishermen, coastal guards in Tunisia, Italy Malta…they always inform us.
Have you ever heard about a case where a boat drowned without any of the occupants being rescued?
Every case is different from the other. After all, everyone is going to see what was meant to happen for him…sometimes they do rescue boats with some people alive on them, but most of the time… the sea is very huge and fishing boats do not sail often. Before, boats would sail more regularly, but recently they stopped and we are lacking when it comes to information resources. So now it is either fishermen, who do the rescuing and sometimes our coast guards rescue some as well by chance.
So for you as Libyan coast guards, do you follow up upon the issue of those smugglers?
All our work is about what happens inside the sea and we do not get involved in what happens out of it.
So who takes care of those smugglers?
The authorities who have a higher rank than us. We usually get in touch with these authorities when we arrest those illegal boats while sailing.
This year I heard that someone was arrested because he was accused of smuggling people.
I have no idea about him. We do suffer from the lack of means. At some point Italian newspapers highlighted the role of coast guards in reducing illegal immigration by 80%, and they awarded us six boats.
Do you have the means to save any boat?
No we do not have the means to carry out rescue operations. We have scarce resources.
What happens when you find a body at sea?
For us, after rescuing or taking bodies on our boat, we take them to the closest port and then we communicate with authorities (passport control, criminal police, and counter-illegal immigration forces) and they do the rest. Once illegal immigrants are on the mainland, our role comes to an end.
