The European Union will allow members to restrict sales of inflatable boats and outboard motors to Libya in an effort to stop dangerous migrant smuggling across the Mediterranean.

EU foreign ministers have agreed to allow member countries to ban such exports or supply "where there are reasonable grounds to believe that they will be used by people smugglers and human traffickers".

A statement said the measure will also apply to boats and motors transiting through the EU, but not to fishermen or others with legitimate need for them.

The foreign ministers also agreed to extend a border aid mission in Libya through to the end of 2018 that helps Libyan security forces, notably in the lawless south.

Migrant crossings from Libya to Italy on unsafe boats have climbed in recent weeks. </s> The European Union restricts exports of inflatable boats to stem the flow of refugees and migrants from North Africa.

EU foreign ministers are seeking a joint global strategy on refugees and migration as thousands continue to make the perilous journey across the Mediterranean Sea.

The ministers met in Brussels on Monday looking to build on existing cooperation with each other and the UN.

More than 100,000 refugees and migrants have crossed the Mediterranean to Europe this year, many of them were smuggled from Libya.

The European Union is introducing export restrictions on inflatable boats and outboard motors being sold in Libya to try and stem the flow.

Italian leaders say they bear the brunt of the refugee burden and not enough is being done to help them.

EU interior ministers agreed last month to step up deportations of failed asylum-seekers and help beef up the Libyan coastguard.

The Italian govermment is warning of unprecedented measures if other European countries fail to share its overwhelming burden. Are the threats serious? </s> The European Union on Monday adopted limits on the export of inflatable boats to Libya in a bid to make it harder for smugglers to send migrants to Europe.

The decision by the foreign ministers of the 28 EU states, which also covers outboard motors, is the latest to help a chaotic and violence-torn Libya stem the flow of migrants to Italy, now the main route to the bloc.

"We took a decision to introduce restrictions from today onwards on the export and supply to Libya of the inflatable boats and motors," EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said.

"These are devices are used by traffickers for smuggling activities. This decision we have taken on the European Union level will help make their businesses and lives even more complicated," the former Italian foreign minister told reporters.

An EU statement said there will now be a legal basis to block the supply of dinghies and outboard motors to Libya if there are "reasonable grounds" to suspect they will be used by people smugglers and human traffickers.

The restrictions will also apply to such goods if they are transiting through the EU to Libya -- a move which would in theory affect China where many are manufactured.

Fishermen and others who have legitimate reasons to use the dinghies and motors will still be able to import them, the council said.

In practice, EU countries could deny licenses to import-export businesses suspected of supplying smugglers, according to EU sources.

The foreign ministers meanwhile extended until the end of 2018 an EU mission to help Libya re-establish effective controls mainly at its southern borders where sub-Saharan African migrants first arrive.

Libya is struggling to control its long land borders with Sudan, Chad and Niger.

In another bid to stop smuggling, the EU has also trained 113 Libyan coast guard members in the last few months and plans to train another 75 starting in September, Mogherini told reporters.

The EU is facing growing pressure from Italy to stop the flow of migrants to its shores, including demands to make member states admit tens of thousands migrants under a largely unenforced emergency plan launched nearly two years ago.

The Italian authorities have already registered 85,000 arrivals on its coasts in the first six months of the year. </s> The European Union has imposed limits on the export of inflatable boats to Libya in a bid to make it harder for smugglers to send refugees and migrants to Europe.

The decision on Monday by the foreign ministers of the 28 EU states is the latest step to stem the flow of people from Libya to Italy, now the main escape route to the bloc.

"We took a decision to introduce restrictions from today onwards on the export and supply to Libya of the inflatable boats and motors," EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said.

READ MORE: Defend Europe boat tries to block migrant rescues

"These devices are used by traffickers for smuggling activities. This decision we have taken on the European Union level will help make their businesses and lives even more complicated," the former Italian foreign minister told reporters.

An EU statement said there will now be a legal basis to block the supply of dinghies and outboard motors to Libya if there are "reasonable grounds" to suspect they will be used by people smugglers and human traffickers.

The restrictions will also apply to such goods if they are transiting through the EU to Libya - a move which would, in theory, affect China where many are manufactured.

Fishermen and others who have legitimate reasons to use the dinghies and motors will still be able to import them, the council said.

In practice, EU countries could deny licenses to import-export businesses suspected of supplying smugglers, according to EU sources.

Crossings and deaths

The new rule does not cover Libya's neighbouring countries, which remain a source of dinghies and outboard motors for smugglers.

As of May 2017, there have been 1,530 people who drowned while crossing the Mediterranean and most of them were reportedly trying to cross to Italy, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

The foreign ministers meanwhile extended until the end of 2018 an EU mission to help Libya re-establish effective controls mainly at its southern borders where sub-Saharan African refugees and migrants first arrive.

Libya is struggling to control its long land borders with Sudan, Chad and Niger.

In another bid to stop smuggling, the EU has also trained 113 Libyan coastguard members in the last few months and plans to train another 75 starting in September, Mogherini told reporters.

The EU is facing growing pressure from Italy to stop the flow of people to its shores, including demands to make member states admit tens of thousands of refugees and migrants under a largely unenforced emergency plan launched nearly two years ago.

More than 100,000 refugees and migrants have crossed the Mediterranean Sea since the start of the year, and 84 percent have arrived in Italy from Libya by boat, according to the IOM. </s> The EU is limiting the sale of inflatable boats and outboard motors to Libya in an effort to stop dangerous migrant smuggling across the Mediterranean.

Foreign ministers agreed to allow member countries to ban such export or supply 'where there are reasonable grounds to believe that they will be used by people smugglers and human traffickers'.

A statement said the measure will also apply to boats and motors transiting through the EU - though not to fishermen or others with legitimate need for them.

The foreign ministers also agreed to extend a border aid mission in Libya through the end of 2018 that helps Libyan security forces, notably in the lawless south.

Last week, a senior EU envoy urged Beijing to restrict the sale of inflatable dinghies that he said are used by trafficking gangs to carry migrants on treacherous sea journeys to Europe.

Around 1.4million refugees and migrants have made their way to Europe since 2015, many of whom are fleeing Syria's bloody civil war, in the biggest wave of migration the continent has seen since World War II.

Thousands have died, often while attempting to cross the Aegean and Mediterranean Seas in flimsy rubber boats.

Last year Italian coastguard vessels recovered more than a thousand such crafts, each with an average of 122 passengers.

And migrant crossings from Libya to Italy on unsafe boats have climbed in recent weeks.

The number of migrants arriving in Italy by boat in the first six months of 2017 was about 85,000, EU border agency Frontex has announced.

Most of the migrants came on boats from Libya, with 24,800 alone coming in June.

More than 1,000 migrants are thought to have died in waters between the two nations, according to the International Organization for Migration.

The figure is 21 per cent higher than it was in 2016, and went up eight per cent between May to June.

Most of the arrivals were from either Guinea and Nigeria, followed by people from Ivory Coast and Bangladesh. </s> The European Union said Monday that it is looking to limit the amount of migrants coming into its member countries by restricting the sale of rubber dinghies to Libya.

The foreign ministers of the 28 member states of the EU made the decision, which also covers rubber vessels that have outboard motors, to assist the North African nation stem the flow of migrants leaving its shores for Italy.

"We took a decision to introduce restrictions from today onwards on the export and supply to Libya of the inflatable boats and motors," EU foreign policy Chief Federica Mogherini said according to Deutsche Welle. "These are devices are used by traffickers for smuggling activities. This decision we have taken on the European Union level will help make their businesses and lives even more complicated."

According to a statement released by EU officials, they claim that there is now a legal basis to block the supply of the boats to Libya is there are “reasonable grounds.”

The sales restrictions, however, will not apply to legitimate Libyan businesses, such as professional fishing crews. It was not immediately clear how the Union will check to ensure that exports do not end up in the wrong hands.

Europe, and Italy in particular, has seen a sharp rise in Migrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea for 2017.

More than 88,000 migrants have crossed the Mediterranean to Italy so far this year, and more than a quarter of them arrived in June alone, according to BBC News.

The EU foreign ministers have also extended a mission to help Libya re-establish effective controls at its southern borders where migrants first arrive. The country has been struggling to maintain its land borders with Sudan, Chad and Niger. The EU has also started training Libyan Coast Guard members.

The union has been facing growing pressure from Italy to quell the flow of migrants to its coast.

The country has also demanded that EU member states admit tens of thousands of migrants, as part of a unenforced emergency plan nearly two years ago. </s> (CNN) The European Union will limit the number of inflatable boats and motors it sends to Libya in order to prevent human trafficking .

"These are devices that are used by traffickers for their smuggling activities. So this decision we have taken on the European Union level will help (in) making their businesses and their lives a bit more complicated," Federica Mogherini, the EU's chief foreign policy official, said at a news conference Monday.

The EU said the restrictions will not prevent exports or sales when they are "meant for legitimate uses by the civilian population, for instance for fishermen, who may need motors for their boats."

Libyan naval officers punctures a dinghy used by illegal migrants at the naval base in Tripoli on May 6.

More than 100,000 migrants have arrived in Europe by sea this year -- with Italy being their preferred first port of call. Some never make it. More than 2,300 have been reported dead or missing in the Mediterranean in 2017, according to the International Organization for Migration

Many fleeing Libya hope to escape the volatile situation and civil unrest that has rocked the country following the death of its ousted dictator, Moammar Gadhafi.

On the whole, the migrants come from across Africa and the Middle East, some fleeing violence and persecution and others looking for economic refuge.

Mogherini said the EU would continue to work with Libya to help the country out of its security crisis.

EU foreign ministers also agreed to renew the bloc's mission to assist Libyan authorities with border management, law enforcement and criminal justice, particularly along the country's southern borders.

"Libya has enough resources -- including human resources, economic resources and natural resources -- to find its own way out of this political crisis, which is the essential precondition to work on security issues and also on migration," she said. </s> In an extraordinary twist more than two years after the migration crisis began, eurocrats agreed to place a ban on European companies flogging inflatable dinghies to criminal gangs. EU leaders expressed concerns that migrants are being ferried across the Mediterranean from Libya using boats and engines sourced from Europe.

People smugglers have been taking advantage of people’s desperation for a better life by packing them into unsafe and unseaworthy vessels. Thousands have tragically drowned in the Mediterranean whilst many more have been found by rescue teams drifting at sea in tiny inflatables.

Italy is currently under unbearable pressure from the sheer number of new arrivals, with 10,000 people reaching its shores every day. The renewed migration crisis has threatened to once more push the EU to breaking point, with Rome furious at a lack of help from fellow members. Italian officials have threatened to close their ports to migrant ships and want a new code of conduct for NGOs running search and rescue operations. As Brussels continues to struggle with the political and humanitarian fallout from the crisis, eurocrats today announced the new measure on boat exports.

Foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini said it was unacceptable people smugglers were using machinery acquired from Europe to commit their crimes. She said: “We took a decision to introduce restrictions from today onwards on the export and supply to Libya of inflatable boats and motors. “These devices are used by traffickers for smuggling activities. This decision we have taken at the European Union level will help make their businesses and lives even more complicated.” In a statement Brussels said it national authorities can now block the sale of dinghies and outboard motors to Libya if there are “reasonable grounds” to suspect they will be used by people smugglers and human traffickers.

The restrictions will affect all goods travelling from Europe to the North African state even if they were manufactured elsewhere, with many boats and engines sold on the continent actually made in China. Officials said that people who could prove they have a legitimate need for such equipment, like fishermen, would still be able to source it from European companies. They added that any businesses found breaching the rules and supplying to people smugglers could have their import-export licenses revoked by European authorities. The measure is the latest in a number of initiatives the EU has taken to combat the growing crisis in Italy, including training up the Libyan coastguard and speeding up deportations of economic migrants. </s> A boat packed with African nationals has sunk in the Mediterranean Sea, the Libyan coast guard said.

At least 97 migrants, including children, are believed to have drowned after their Europe-bound inflatable boat "completely collapsed," said spokesman Ayoub Gassim.

Gassim said 23 migrants were rescued around six miles (10 kilometers) off the Libyan coast after authorities received a distress call.

In February, the bodies of 74 drowned migrants washed ashore from the Mediterranean in Libya, as thousands tackle the dangerous sea crossing to Europe every year.

Smugglers use often unsafe boats to ferry thousands of migrants from the north African country to Europe each month. Mass drownings are common when the overloaded boats capsize or sink.

The German government said on Thursday that it would support a ban on the export of boats from the European Union to Libya as part of measures to stem the flow of migrants across the Mediterranean. </s> Greek authorities have seized a Tanzanian-flagged ship heading for Libya and carrying materials, which have been loaded in Turkey’s İskenderun and Mersin ports, used to make explosives, the Greek coastguards said on Wednesday.

According to a report by Reuters, the vessel was detected sailing near the Greek island of Crete on Saturday. Authorities found 29 containers carrying materials including ammonium nitrate, non-electric detonators and 11 empty liquefied petroleum gas tanks. “The materials were headed to Libya,” Rear Admiral Ioannis Argiriou told reporters. He said the material could be used “for all sorts of work, from work in quarries to making bombs and acts of terrorism.”

European Union and United Nations-imposed arms embargoes have prohibited the sale, supply or transfer of arms to Libya since 2011. According to the ship’s bill of lading, the cargo had been loaded in the Turkish ports of Mersin and İskenderum and was destined for Djibouti and Oman.

But the Greek coastguard said a preliminary investigation found the captain had been ordered by the vessel’s owner to sail to the Libyan city of Misrata to unload and deliver the entire cargo. No shipping maps were found on the ship’s logbook for the Djibouti and Oman areas, the coastguard said. The eight-member crew has been arrested and will appear before a prosecutor on Thursday.

On September 2017, the Tin-Can Island Command of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) busted syndicates that smuggled weapons into Nigeria in containers containing guns from Turkey and apprehended weapons and ammunition two times within two weeks. Nigerian customs had said the guns were found in a 20-foot container marked No. CMAU189817/8.

The statement quoted Col. Hammed Ali, the comptroller-general, as narrating how the terminal operator quarantined the flagged container for stricter analysis. “It was transferred to the enforcement unit, where 100 percent examination revealed 470 pump action rifles as against elbow plumbing plastics on its bill of lading,” it said.

“Importer of this deadly cargo is Great James Oil and Gas Ltd, while the vessel is MV Arkas Africa owned by Hull Blyth. This discovery brings to a total of 2,671 rifles seized within the last eight months of this year,” said the statement. “Since this container belongs to the same importer of the 1,100 rifles, the ongoing investigation will be reinvigorated to fish out all those directly or remotely connected with these dangerous importers,” it added.

A top Nigerian official had also met with the Turkish ambassador to Nigeria after a container containing hundreds of guns from Turkey was confiscated. The Nigerian media had reported that this was the fourth time in a year that illegal arms shipments from Turkey were seized by customs officers in Nigeria. Nigeria Customs Service, NCS, said 2,671 rifles had been imported from Turkey since January.

“The government is worried about the incessant importation of arms from Turkey. This year alone, four shipments have come from that country,” customs spokesman Joseph Attah had told AFP. According to Attah, 470 rifles were seized on Tuesday less than two weeks after operatives of the Tin-Can Island Command of NCS busted a syndicate that smuggled over 1,100 weapons into Nigeria.

“We have found out that the people bringing in these weapons are Nigerians. They have syndicates in Turkey who are manifesting these weapons,” Atah said and added that “We are yet to get to the bottom of the whole issue. We will investigate to know if these weapons are meant for commercial purposes or group of insurgents or agitators.”

In January 2014, a number of trucks that were found to belong to MİT were stopped by Turkish gendarmes in two separate incidents in the southern provinces of Hatay and Adana, after prosecutors received tips that they were carrying arms to Syria.

Although the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government has claimed that the trucks were transporting humanitarian aid to the Turkmen community in Syria, opposition voices have continued to question why, if the operation was within the law, the government intervened to prevent the trucks from being searched.

Cumhuriyet daily had reported in May 2015 that trucks allegedly owned by the National Intelligence Organisation (MİT) were found to contain weapons and ammunition that were headed for Syria when they were stopped and searched in southern Turkey in early 2014.

When the MİT truck story first broke in 2015, it produced a political firestorm in Turkey about the role of the Turkish spy agency in arming rebel factions in Syria and prompted an investigation into Cumhuriyet daily journalists Can Dündar and Erdem Gül, who published the report.

Also in 2014, Turkish Airlines attracted attention after a voice recording surfaced, allegedly a phone conversation between a senior Turkish Airlines (THY) official and one of then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s advisers.

“Lots of material is on its way to Nigeria right now. Is it going to kill Muslims or Christians? I am sinning right now, you should know,” one voice, purportedly that of the THY official, says.

The voice supposedly of Erdoğan’s adviser says he would contact with MİT Undersecretary Hakan Fidan. Turkish Airlines denied carrying weapons and military equipment to Nigeria.
The European Union restricts the exports of inflatable boats to Libya.