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Italian Foreign Minister Luigi de Maio has asked other countries for help to bring them home.
Bringing the 18 fishermen home is definitely a priority issue for the Italian government, Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio told the Senate. But General Haftar’s government in eastern Libya demands in return the release of four Libyans, whom Italy arrested in 2015 for human trafficking. Libya claims that all four are soccer players, while Italy has sentenced them to 30 years in prison and guilty of the deaths of 49 migrants.
It was already September 1, as the two crews of the Sicilian fishing boats were detained off the coast north of Benghazi in eastern Libya. Eight Italians and the rest Tunisians, Indonesians and Senegalese.
It is discussed exactly who owns the water with the coveted crayfish, where the fish were caught. Libya unilaterally declared the area fifteen years ago to constitute Libyan waters and stated at the time of the arrest that it is a military area. Italy has a different picture of where the territorial borders go in the Mediterranean.
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Maio He said in the Senate the other day that there have been incidents in the area in the past, including violent ones, but that now that neither Italy, the EU nor the UN recognize General Haftar’s government as legitimate for Libya, he has turned to countries that have better contacts with eastern Libya, among others. France, the United States and Russia.
Outside the parliament in Rome, relatives of the fishermen have demonstrated to pressure the Italian government. Their image is that they only bring their husbands home if there is an exchange, as required by the Haftar government.
