Libya has agreed with key EU and African leaders to allow migrants facing abuse in detention camps to be evacuated within days or weeks, mostly to their home countries, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday.
The decision was taken after Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara called for “all urgent measures” to end slave trading and other migrant abuses in Libya at an EU-Africa summit in Abidjan.
The leaders of Libya, France, Germany, Chad, Niger and four other countries “decided on an extreme emergency operation to evacuate from Libya those who want to be,” Macron told reporters after their emergency talks on the summit sidelines.
The summit comes just two weeks after CNN aired footage of black Africans sold as slaves in Libya, sparking outrage from political leaders and street protests in African and European capitals.
“Libya restated its agreement to identify the camps where barbaric scenes have been identified,” Macron said, adding Libyan Prime Minister Fayez Sarraj “gave his agreement that access be assured.”
African Union (AU) , EU and UN officials at the meeting offered increased support for the International Organisation of Migration “to help with the return of the Africans who want it to their home countries,” said the French leader, who called the emergency meeting.
“This work will be carried out in the next few days, in line with the countries of origin,” he said, adding in some cases they could be given asylum in Europe.
EU sources earlier said UN humanitarian agencies like the International Organization for Migration had arranged for about 13,000 migrants to return voluntarily to their home countries mainly in sub-Saharan Africa in the last year after a deal with Libya.
The furor over slavery as well as torture and rape of black African migrants in Libya prompted the select group of countries — which also included Spain, Italy, Morocco and the Congo — to undertake other measures.
The group also decided to work with a task force, involving the sharing of police and intelligence services, to “dismantle the networks and their financing, and detain traffickers,” Macron said.
The AU, EU and UN officials also pledged to freeze the assets of identified traffickers while the AU will set up an investigative panel and the UN could take cases before the International Court of Justice, he added.
Opening a EU-Africa summit that was meant to focus on the continent’s long-term economic development, Ouattara immediately lashed out at slavery as a “wretched drama which recalls the worst hours of human history.”
“I would like to appeal to our sense of responsibility to take all urgent measures to put an end to that practice, which belongs to another age,” he said, opening the gathering of 55 AU and 28 EU leaders in Abidjan.
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