AUC chairperson visits Libya's detention centres for illegal migrants
Tripoli, Libya (PANA) – The African Union (AU) Commission chairperson, Moussa Faki Mahamat, on Tuesday visited the Tripoli branch of the Libyan detention centre for illegal immigrants, where he sought to know how immigrants, stranded in Libya, are being treated.
He was accompanied on the visit by the Libyan minister of foreign affairs of the government of national accord, Mohamed Taher Siala.
The African Union delegation includes the Peace and Security Commissioner, Ismail Chargui, the Commissioner for social affairs, Amira Fadhil, and the special representative of the AU Commission in Libya, Wahida Ayari.
The AUC chairman was briefed on efforts to host and rescue the migrants in the retention centers.
Libya, facing insecurity since the 17 February revolution in 2011 after the fall of the Ghaddafi regime, has become one of the main countries from where waves of illegal migrants leave for Europe.
Some 650,000 migrants are present in Libya, including more than 5,000 in detention centers, according to statistics released by the Organization for international migration (OIM)Aware of the violations perpetrated in detention centers against migrants the majority of which are run by armed groups, the Libyan authorities decided to close the centers, in collaboration with OIM, which launched a programme of voluntary return for stranded migrants. More than 20,000 such migrants were repatriated in 2018.
The AU-EU Summit held on 29-30 November in the Ivorian capital, Abidjan, on the illegal migrants’ crisis in Libya had decided to take a series of emergency measures, including nthe evacuation operations.
AU, EU and UN decided to take more sustained assistance to OIM in a bid to help for the return of Africans who desire to return back to their countries of origin.
-0- PANA BY/IS/MSA/VAO 3April2019
