Former activists and irregular migrants who survived drowning at sea launched a solidarity campaign to release 3 African migrants imprisoned in Malta on various charges, including "terrorism", after they left Libyan lands by sea seeking to reach the European mainland.
According to a report published by the English-language website Al-Jazeera, a maritime rescue activist, Jelka Kritzschmar, and a fellow at Warwick University, Maurice Stirl, that the three Africans had left Libya on a rubber boat in March 2019 with more than a hundred other immigrants escaping torture and imprisonment in Libya and seeking to reach To Europe, but their engine failed and they were stranded at sea.
Operation Sophia
After a period of time, they were discovered by a naval "Operation Sophia" aircraft launched by the European Union in 2015 with the aim of dismantling migrant smuggling networks and monitoring the arms embargo to Libya - which instructed a merchant ship called "ElHiblu1". Close to the area to carry out a rescue operation.
After the ship arrived at the place, the ship's crew proceeded to take the afflicted on board, but some refused to board for fear of being returned to Libya and decided to remain on the rubber boat, and nothing has been heard from them since.
As for the other migrants (numbering 108), they decided to board the "Heblo 1" after they were informed that they would be transported to Europe, but the captain of the ship decided to return them, upon instructions from the European authorities, to Libya.
Upon approaching the Libyan shores, these immigrants realized that they had been deported and felt betrayed and fearful. The ship, taking advantage of their English language skills, in order to reach a kind of understanding between the two parties.
"Informative play"
Faced with their intense anxiety and collective protest, the captain stopped the engine 6 miles from the Libyan coast, turned and headed north, after which the "three mediators" were invited to join the chief officer of the ship in his cabin to follow the direction of the trip, but then things turned into something like a "media play."
The Italian Minister of the Interior Matteo Salvini appeared on the media claiming that what happened on board the "Heplo 1" was a "kidnapping" and depicted the afflicted migrants fleeing war and torture as "pirates and terrorists".
Upon approaching the Maltese coast, military forces stormed the ship and escorted it to a nearby port, where the three migrants were arrested and charged with multiple crimes, including "terrorist acts".
The charges against the three immigrants at the time, who were between the ages of 15, 16 and 19, were serious, which, if convicted, could expose them to life imprisonment.
Although they were released on bail after spending 7 months in prison, they have to register with the police every day and face a grueling trial as hearings have been repeatedly postponed.
No progress has been made (to date) in the case over the past 24 months.
It is clear that the "farcical trial" of the three immigrants - who have come to be known as "Heplo 3" - is another attempt by the authorities to criminalize any form of risky migration to the old continent, while the violent practices of law enforcement operations at the border continue to be hidden. European.
The Maltese authorities - including their armed forces - have over the past years faced a series of accusations of potential transgressions, such as failing to provide aid to people in distress, unlawful detention of migrants at sea, sabotaging their boats, and even being involved in the fatal return of irregular migrants in April / April. 2020, killing 12 people.