After a month, the Uruguayan Italian activist Matías Álvarez Rodríguez was released in Libya after being detained while traveling in a humanitarian convoy towards the Gaza Strip.
Global Sumud Land activists had warned at the end of May that they had lost contact with ten of its participants in a control zone Libyaamong them this 29 year old Uruguayan.
The Italian authorities announced this Tuesday the release of two Italian activists and that of the Uruguayan. “Our consul in Benghazi has been entrusted to Matías Álvarez RodríguezUruguayan with Italian citizenship, whom we have followed and attended these days“wrote Italian Deputy Prime Minister Antonio Tajani.
“Thanks to intense diplomatic work, in coordination between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Palazzo Chigi, Tomorrow they will finally return to Italy“added the leader on social networks. Uruguayan Foreign Ministry celebrated the news through the same means and thanked “the Italian diplomatic services and Uruguay that were involved.”
There is no Uruguayan embassy in LibyaIn addition, Álvarez Rodríguez had not been captured by the Libyan State but by the insurgent forces that dominate part of the territory. From the Foreign Ministry they indicated that the negotiations were very complex and were carried out through the Embassy in Egypt requesting assistance from Italian Consulate.
The members of the mission had left Algeria on May 8, crossed Tunisia and western Libya. At the time, on their social networks they attributed the disappearance of their colleagues to a possible arrest by Benghazi city authorities.
On May 14, it was warned that foreign activists would not be allowed to pass through its territory following Cairo’s decision to prohibit land entry into Egypt. except for those with Libyan nationality.
Faced with this blockade, the members of the caravan tried to negotiate with the authorities in eastern Libya and coordinate with the Libyan Red Crescent the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza, in collaboration with the Egyptian authorities. But they did not receive a response from either party..
Faced with this silence, the convoy – made up of 20 buses, 10 ambulances and 50 trucks loaded with supplies, and made up of more than 500 activists of different nationalities – decided to continue its journey towards the city of Sirte, located on the line that separates the west and east of the country, and where the disappearance of its ten members was reported.
