Rights body faults AU, EU on evacuation of African migrants detained in Libya

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01 Décembre 2017

Nairobi, Kenya, December 1 (Infosplusgabon) -  Amnesty International on Thursday blasted the African Union (AU) and the European Union (EU) for dragging their feet before deciding to take collective and unilateral actions to help facilitate evacuation of African migrants and refugees detained in Libya.

''Two weeks of hand-wringing about slave auctions in Libya have been followed by two days of announcements designed to maintain the pretence of humanitarian concern, while keeping Europe’s primary aim – the closure of the central Mediterranean route - intact,'' Amnesty International Director for Europe John Dalhuisen, said in a press statement.

He was reacting to the UN and AU's decision to step in and help evacuate the refugees and migrants, following a media expose, in which the asylum seekers and refugees were captured on video being sold as slaves for peanuts.

“The reality is that hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrants have found themselves trapped in Libya, and exposed to horrific abuses, as a result of the EU’s intensive cooperation with Libyan authorities.

“Plans which overwhelmingly prioritize the ‘voluntary’ return of people now stuck in Libya to their country of origin without an effective system for assessing and meeting asylum needs or offering more resettlement places, will end up as a mechanism for mass deportation, clad in a humanitarian fig-leaf,” he said.

FIN/INFOSPLUSGABON/ASE/GABON 2017

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