(Adnkronos) – Italy’s Consul General in Benghazi, Francesco Colombo on Wednesday paid a further visit to two Italian Gaza land flotilla activists who have been held in the eastern port city since their arrest on 24 May on suspicion of entering Libya illegally and unauthorised assembly.
The two Italian activists told Colombo they were being treated “correctly” and during his visit were allowed to speak to their families by phone, according to a foreign ministry statement. The pair are also expected to receive more clothing, the statement said.
Colombo brought the Italian activists items to make them more comfortable and asked the local Libyan authorities to grant the Gaza flotilla’s legal counsel access to the pair, the statement added. Colombo has visited the detained Italians several times.
Also on Wednesday, two centre-left Italian Euro-MPs wrote to Italy’s foreign minister Antonio Tajani urging “maxium effort” by Italian insitutions to ensure the Italian activists are well treated during their detention.
The letter expressed “grave concern” that the case is dragging on and impacting “people, families and communities who are living through weeks of anxiety and uncertainty. The letter named the two Italian activists as Domenico Centrone and Dina Alberizia.
Rights group Amnesty International on Tuesday issued a statement calling for the immediate release of Centrone, Alberizia and eight other members of the Global Sumud Land Convoy “who have been arbitrarily detained for over two weeks in eastern Libya solely for attempting to deliver aid to Gaza amid Israel’s ongoing genocide”.
Centrone and Alberizia were part of a delegation from the Gaza land convoy including people aged from 30 to 70 from eight countries who tried to get permission from local authorities for the 200-participant convoy to continue its journey across Libya. Instead, they were arrested at a security checkpoint by an armed group affiliated with the eastern military leader Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan Arab Armed Forces (LAAF) and flown to a detention facility in Benghazi whose location eastern Libyan authorities kept secret until 2 June, according to the Amnesty International statement.
