The migrants were clinging to inflatable rafts and were taken onboard coast guard vessels in two operations, naval forces spokesperson Ayizv Qassem told Reuters on Friday. One raft with 87 migrants was intercepted near the coast off Qarabuli, a town 50 kilometers east of Tripoli. Two other inflatable boats with 203 migrants were detected off Zliten, a town 160 kilometers east of the capital, according to Qassem. Libya considered not safe for migrantsThe Libyan coast guard, which is part of Libya's Navy, returned the migrants to the mainland and handed them over to the authorities in charge of combatting irregular migration, the "Anti-Illegal Migration Agency". The German aid group Sea-Watch on Twitter said that its aircraft Moonbird witnessed the operations, calling them "EU sanctioned and human rights-violating interceptions of two boats by the co-called Libyan Coast Guard."

Source: Libya Today May 24, 2019 10:18 UTC