“They also found a boat, lost at sea with no survivors on board”

Interviewing a Libyan Coast Guard official.

Redha Issa is the director of the Coast Guard for central Libya. 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.

Can you first tell us about the story of the immigrants who disappeared on the 28th of June 2014?

I think during May or April in 2014, three boats were found. One of them was empty, another one had 36 migrants from Eritrea and Bangladesh. The third had four people who were in a very bad state. According to what they told us, they were on another boat accompanied with 103 people, who all died. They left the first boat and moved to another lost boat, they kept sailing with it until they reached the shore of Misrata.

In June 2014 we did not document any illegal migration incidents. But our coast guards on patrol rescued 96 migrants alive by the end of August 2014. They also found a boat, lost at sea with no survivors on board. From what we have observed, the boat seems like it was there for a month or so. We observed some birds resting on it. On this boat we only found one decomposed body.

Did the body have any documents or identification papers?

No, nothing.

How long do you believe the body had been on board the boat?

From our experience working at sea, the body had been there for more than a month. The boat had traces left by birds, and it was started to see the beginning of formation of algae—which shows that it has been there for more than two months.

When do you find migrants—or the bodies of migrants—what procedures do you undertake?

We inform the police first, and the illegal immigration committee and the general attorney as well.

Do you do the documenting part or the general attorney?

It is important for us to document but for the rest of procedures, it is for the general attorney to take care of them.

So do you document in a personalized way, or is it more general?

It’s general. We count the number of bodies… Our role is to rescue or recover bodies and the rest is for the police and attorney general.

How about African migrants, from where do they take off?

Usually they have left or taken off from Tajura. If the migrants are Syrians, Palestinians and all those with the Arab nationalities, generally they take off from Zuwarah.

Do you have information about any known smugglers? We have some names like Ibrahim, a Libyan, and Jamal al-Saudi, from Eritrea.

Well, for us those names are not complete, and it is not easy to identify names. But a Libyan smuggler was caught, and he testified and mentioned many other names. Libyan officers are taking care of that. We will take the names and make our investigations. We will try to cooperate as much as we can with you, either for those who died or the living ones, we will provide you with all what we have.