Libya

Europe must do more to help migrants crossing the Mediterranean, UN chief Ban Ki-moon said on Tuesday ahead of a visit to Brussels, as a planned EU naval operation awaits UN Security Council approval.

The European Union is set to back plans on May 18 for an ambitious naval force to fight people smugglers in the Mediterranean after a series of shipwrecks that killed hundreds of migrants.

Libya's official government has banned Bangladeshi workers from entering the country because many were trying to travel on illegally by boat to Europe, a government spokesman said on May 16.

A Turkish cargo ship, which was attacked by the Libyan military off the Libya coast on May 10, was en route to the port in Tobruk with proven documents and carrying declared cargo, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Tanju Bilgiç has said, dismissing allegations that the vessel had been carrying weapons and approaching the city of Derna in Libya. 

The second captain of a Turkish cargo ship, which was attacked off Libya on May 10, has said Libyan authorities had only "warned us with a bomb" during the attack.

ANSA sent shivers through southern Europe on Tuesday with a report that Islamic State (ISIS) terrorists will be ferried into Italy “in the coming weeks” concealed amongst illegal migrants loaded aboard various smugglers’ vessels.
The Italian news agency quotes Omar al Gawari, the information minister in Libya’s Tobruk government.

Turkey has called for a speedy political settlement to the Libyan problem a day after a Turkish cargo ship, "Tuna-1," was shelled off the Libyan coast and attacked from the air, killing one and wounding several others. 

The Libyan coast guard arrested about 600 African migrants, including a  pregnant woman and 18 minors, who were trying to board a fishing boat in an apparent attempt to land on some EU shore.

Libya, which is in chaos after Gaddafi’s downfall, has since become a portal for illegal immigration from sub-Saharan Africa into Europe via the Mediterranean.

A militia alliance that controls Libya's capital has carried out air strikes against positions of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) jihadist group in the coastal city of Sirte, an official said.
 

European Union leaders gathering for an extraordinary summit are facing calls from all sides to take emergency action to save lives in the Mediterranean, where hundreds of migrants are missing and feared drowned in recent days.