EU sanctions Kazak Airlines Carrying Arms from UAE to Libya Militias
EU sanctions on UAE-linked, but Kazakhstan-based Sigma Airlines reveal another helping hand of the Emirates in the Libyan offensives. Another major violator of the international arms embargo in the North African nation, the aircraft has also been barred by the Kazakhstan’s government.
A pool of war crimes and violations, Libya has been yearning for a peaceful solution to the contamination that is leading to slow decaying of Tripoli’s political establishment and economy. As much as a truce is being anticipated for the country, the offensives have only intensified, particularly by the involvement of foreign nations, including the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Egypt, Russia, Jordan, Israel and Turkey.
These international parties intervening in the Libyan civil war have continued to breach the 2011 arms embargo imposed by the United Nations to curb any inflows of weapons and military in the North African nation. Latest crucial violator in the series is the Kazakhstan-based Sigma Airlines that was operating from the UAE to take military material to Libya.
On September 21, 2020, the EU sanctioned UAE-linked Sigma Airlines for breaching the Libyan arms embargo, along with a Turkish company, Avrasya Shipping, and a Jordan-based maritime firm, Med Wave Shipping. The EU also sanctioned Moussa Diab and Benghazi-based Mahmoud al-Werfalli for causing human rights abuses in Libya.
Following the EU sanctions on UAE-operated Kazak Airlines, the government of Kazakhstan also barred three airlines, while the Aviation Administration of Kazakhstan suspended their certificates, as they were found operating in the Middle East region for supplying illegal materials to foreign customers. The main base of these aircrafts, including Azee Air, Jenis Air and Sigma Airlines, was UAE.
Breaching the UN arms embargo, these airlines were supplying weapons and military equipment to Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA), on behalf of the UAE. Among these air carriers is Sigma Airlines, which has long been involved in making violations of the Libyan air embargo.
While the main office is in Kazakhstan, the sales office of Sigma Airlines is in the UAE, for which it has been carrying arms and hard cash to Haftar forces in Libya. In May 2020, it was exposed that an Ilyushin (IL-76) cargo aircraft, operated by Sigma Airlines, carried bank notes to southern Libya on January 29, 2019, when the LNA launched an offensive in the region. A commercial network operating through Ukraine, Jordan, Belarus and the UAE helped Sigma Airlines in the Libyan bank-note shipments of January 2019.
Moreover, the EU sanctioned, UAE-linked Sigma Airlines also carried cash from the UAE, Russia and the UK, which transferred highest amount of money, among the 14 countries involved in the inflow of $227 million bank notes in Libya. The UAE was identified to have made cash-related exports of $5 million, Russia of $27 million and the UK of $91 million, according to the UN Comtrade data.
The European Union, the UN and other international entities have been taking several initiatives to ensure that the Libyan peace process is achieved. However, countries like the UAE, Jordan, Egypt, Russia, Turkey and others have been making it difficult by continuing to intervene in Libya to support the two warring sides. The Sigma Airlines expose is just another hidden route that the UAE has taken to breach the arms embargo.
