VShe is a drop of water, certainly welcome, in the ocean of hardship which overwhelms the Libyan people. Despite the efforts of the EU military operation conducted in the Mediterranean for a year under the code name Irini, arms continue to flow into the country from all sides, fueling a climate of extreme violence. Libya has been in the throes of civil war since the fall of Gaddafi ten years ago, even if a ceasefire brings a glimmer of hope.
The UN Security Council imposed an arms embargo on Libya in 2011, when regime troops threatened to quell the ongoing popular uprising, one of the avatars of the “Arab Spring”. This ban obliges all countries to prevent the direct or indirect supply of arms to Libya.
Alas, the UN group of experts on Libya concluded on March 17 in a report of more than 500 pages, the embargo “is totally ineffective”.