The International Criminal Court (ICC) will sustain its joint task force currently investigating crimes committed against migrants in Libya by one year.
The announcement was made by the ICC during its meeting at Spain’s capital Madrid, where the extension was signed by the Deputy Prosecutor, Nazhat Shameem Khan.
The move to extend the period of the probe is a reflection of the international community’s continued concern and commitment to addressing the grave accusations of violations of human rights in Libya.
The ICC’s ongoing initiatives are intended to hold those guilty accountable, provide justice to the victims, and refer to the violence committed against populations of migrants who are at risk.
According to reports from international humanitarian organisations, at least 5,500 refugees have been forced to flee Tunisia and head towards the Libyan borders.
An Agence France-Presse (AFP) report says since June, an additional 3,000 have been despatched in the direction of Algeria’s frontiers.
Over 100 migrants have died in the Libyan-Tunisian desert this summer, according to AFP, citing sources, indicating that “collective expulsion operations to Libya and Algeria are ongoing.”
Many of those who were relocated in the direction of the borders were people who were detained by Tunisian police while trying to flee to Europe.
The majority of the migrants who were apprehended around 130 kilometres from the Italian island of Lampedusa, on Tunisia’s eastern coast, near Sfax have been placed in detention.
Following Kais Saied, the president of Tunisia, denouncing the influx of “hordes of “illegal” immigrants” from Sub-Saharan Africa, the pace of mass migration quickened in February.
AFP reports say Saied saw them as a component of a “criminal plan” to “change the country’s demographic composition.”
According to the research, this rhetoric set off a violent campaign against migrants, which forced thousands of inhabitants of many African nations—most notably the Ivory Coast and Guinea—to return home.
Numerous migrants attempted to flee by boat in the meanwhile, which led to multiple drownings.
The Government of National Unity (GNU) in Libya claimed in August that 27 undocumented migrant bodies had been found near the Tunisian border.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) made it clear that the Office of the Prosecutor leads the task force, with assistance from the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the European Union’s (EU) Europol Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation.