The spokesman for the Libyan Navy Force Ayoub Qassim said Libyan coastguards’ efforts and work in cooperation with Italian authorities led to a sharp drop in migrants arrival numbers to Europe.

He said in a televised statement that the real numbers of migrants for 2018 are no different from the last years, adding that the registered numbers don’t include the ones intercepted by Libyan coastguards.

He also said that Libyan coastguards used to have problems with the international NGOs working off the Libyan coast helping encourage migrants for years to take a perilous sea route to Europe.

Qassim indicated that the European actions taken against those NGOs is because of their threat to security on European and Italian shores, citing the closure of European ports and banning the NGOs to allow migrants to disembark on their shores.

Qassim also remarked that Libya managed to their action against some of those NGOs helped drop the number migrants flow, saying they started losing hope to reach Europe and began to worry about the dangerous sea journey.

Many NGOs such as Doctors Without Borders stopped working off Libyan coast earlier this year, citing European acts of defaming their humanitarian efforts.