NGO urges caution over plan to deploy Irish Naval vessel to Libya

Caution has been urged over Government plans to send an Irish Naval patrol vessel to Libya as part of Operation Irini.

Tánaiste Micheál Martin told the Dáil he is seeking approval to deploy a single Naval Service patrol vessel to Operation Irini for a period of 46 days during June and July this year.

During the mission, the Irish vessel will help enforce a UN arms embargo on Libya, which was introduced in 2020 to preserve peace in the country after the end of the second Libyan civil war. Operation Irini is also responsible for training the Libyan Coast Guard to carry out these tasks.

The ship will be positioned in the area of operations for 34 days and the remaining days will be spent travelling to and from the mission area, Mr Martin said. If approved at a vote in the Dáil on Wednesday evening, it will be the first operational overseas deployment of an Irish Naval ship since 2018, and only the third such mission in Naval Service history.

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Mr Martin said the Naval Service has confirmed it will maintain a patrol plan that will have two ships on domestic patrols for 61 per cent of the deployment period and one ship for the remaining 39 per cent of the time.

“While the department recognises the operational challenges of having only one or two vessels available for domestic duties during this period, the potential benefits of participation in this mission to the recruitment and retention crisis in the Naval Service are accepted,” Mr Martin said.

“Participation in this mission has been identified by the Naval Service as one of the immediate actions that will, potentially, assist in aiding their recruitment and retention efforts.”

Sinn Féin TD Matt Carthy said while his party supported the deployment in principle they would “continue to monitor the situation” to ensure that the commitments given by Mr Martin were adhered to.

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), however, has raised “serious concerns” about the mission due to the involvement of the Libyan coast guard, which the humanitarian organisation claims is intertwined with militias and armed groups that mistreat migrants.

In a letter to the Tánaiste, MSF asked that the Government “refuse Irish Naval training of the Libyan coast guard at any time in the future as part of Operation Irini and to make a statement on its decision”.

In March 2022, the German government refused the participation of its armed forces in the training of the Libyan coast guard as part of Operation Irini due to what their foreign ministry described as “repeated unacceptable behaviour by individual units of the Libyan coast guard toward refugees and migrants”.

Since the start of 2023, almost 10 people a day have lost their lives or have gone missing on the sea migration route between Libya and Italy.

Niamh Burke, an Irish nurse with MSF, said survivors she came across during sea rescues, who had been in Libya, would “show me their scars and tell me how they were beaten by guards and not fed enough food to eat and how they would drink toilet water”.

“They would speak about being beaten with heated plastic, wood, and iron bars. Some of the survivors had suffered sexual violence,” Ms Burke claimed.

“I was told stories of previous attempts to cross, with boats being shot at and forcible returns to Libya, as well as abuses they suffered in that country,” she said.

On one occasion, Ms Burke said she “witnessed a boat in distress being pushed back by the Libyan coast guard, which was one of the worst moments for me during my time on the Geo Barents”.

“Even though we were in our rescue gear, ready to go, we couldn’t do anything to help,” Ms Burke recalled.

“Having to stand back and just watch survivors being brought back to Libya, which is not a place of safety, against humanitarian law, was hard to take. We knew that people would be taken back to prison, to warehouses.”