CAIRO: At least 480 migrants were intercepted off the coast of Libya by local coast guard forces in the past 48 hours, according to the United Nations migration agency.
They are among the 4,500 people who have been brought back to Libya this year after attempting the dangerous Mediterranean Sea crossing to Europe, the International Organization for Migration said in a tweet Sunday.
Photos posted by the IOM Twitter feed showed workers distributing blankets to migrants after they arrived onshore, but the agency also voiced its objection to the treatment of migrants inside the war-torn country.
We maintain that Libya is not a safe port, it wrote.
It said that 310 migrants had been brought back to shore on Saturday night, and an additional 173 were returned on Sunday, in tweets.
In the years since the 2011 NATO-backed uprising that ousted and killed longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi, Libya has emerged as the dominant transit point for migrants fleeing war and poverty in Africa and the…