Libya takes ownership of large area of sea migrant route

Euronews: Libya — with the backing of the European Union — has officially taken ownership of a large area of the sea migrant route into Europe for search and rescue operations, in a move that critics say will block asylum seekers from reaching safety.

Euronews has learned that the Libyan government quietly submitted details of its new maritime search and rescue region to the International Maritime Organization (IMO), the UN agency responsible for regulating shipping, last week.

Prior to the change, there was no official search and rescue zone in the area, with the coordination of responses to migrant crises there typically falling to Italy. This means that rescue ships operating in the area around Libya, where many of the rescues take place, can now be ordered to return shipwrecked migrants back to the country they just fled.