Libya

Greek police detained nine Egyptians on Thursday saying they could flee the country, despite a court ruling dismissing a case against them over a 2023 shipwreck, one of the deadliest in the Mediterranean.

The disaster shocked Europe and the case has been followed closely in Greece, which has been a gateway to the European Union for thousands of migrants and refugees.

The interim government of Tripoli claims Greece is conducting illegal prospecting south of Crete in areas it says are under Libya's jurisdiction. 

The issue was raised last week through a letter sent to the Greek ambassador, Nikos Garilidis. 

Banknotes stolen from the Central Bank of Libya in Benghazi in 2017 have turned up in Larissa, central Greece.

Dressed in tracksuits with their sleeves rolled up, about 30 residents in Tajura, a suburb east of Libya's capital Tripoli, volunteer every day to cook and give away some 300 meals during Ramadan.

Last September, just 30 asylum seekers made the 190-nautical-mile journey from Tobruk in Libya to the Greek island of Gavdos and Crete's southern coast just above it; that number swelled to 397 in December and has passed 1,100 in the first couple of months of 2024. The spike in migrant arrivals from the war-torn North African country is posing a fresh challenge for the Greek authorities.

Around 1,500 migrant arrivals were recorded in Crete in the last quarter - Information about a 7.4 billion euro aid package to Egypt - Aim to fortify the border with Libya

Turkey's growing influence in Libya is reportedly worrying Athens, especially as tensions between Ankara and Benghazi have eased.

In a letter to United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Greece's permanent representative to the organization, Evangelos Sekeris, says that Libya's recent decision to declare a 24-nautical mile contiguous zone, extending beyond its 12-nautical mile territorial sea, violates international law in three key respects.

The intense use of new migrant routes from the coasts of Egypt and Libya to Gavdos, just south of Crete, has been recorded in recent months, while increased migration pressure has also been observed in the southeast Aegean and in particular Kos. 

In the latest reshuffling of the pack in the Eastern Mediterranean, the Tripoli government in Libya has informed the United Nations of the Council of Ministers' decision, led by Prime Minister Abdul Hamid al-Dbeibeh, to declare a 12 nautical mile territorial waters zone and then, to declare a contiguous zone extending 24 nautical miles northward, as permitted by the United Nations Convention on