MSF calls for more routes to evacuate refugees from Libya

Published date24 June 2022
New routes to safety could include new humanitarian corridors, and the chance for people to be sponsored privately or given a new home through community sponsorship, MSF says, allowing safe countries to "assume their responsibilities" and "prevent further abuse, trafficking, violence and torture directed at people who already survived what the United Nations qualifies as crimes against humanity"

MSF has been working with migrants and refugees in Libya since 2016, one year before the EU began spending tens of millions of euro on supporting the Libyan coastguard, enabling it to intercept boats of people trying to reach Europe. Since then, close to 100,000 men, women and children have been caught on the Central Mediterranean and forcibly returned to Libya.

Victims of torture

In its new report, MSF said that for many migrants trapped in Libya, including those with "serious physical and mental conditions", along with victims of torture, there are "no safe options" in the North African country.

Refugees and migrants have two main ways to leave Libya, MSF says. There are so-called "voluntary humanitarian returns", organised by the...

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