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UN: African Refugees Trapped in Libya to go to Rwanda

Reuters

   NAIROBI/LONDON --Hundreds of refugees trapped in Libyan detention
   centers will be evacuated to Rwanda as conflict rages in the north
   African nation, the United Nations said Tuesday.

   Vincent Cochetel, special envoy for the central Mediterranean for the
   U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR), said 500 refugees would be evacuated to
   Rwanda in a deal signed with the small east African nation and the
   African Union.

   "The agreement with Rwanda says the number can be increased from 500 if
   they are satisfied with how it works," Cochetel told the Thomson
   Reuters Foundation in an interview ahead of the official U.N.
   announcement.

   "It really depends on the response of the international community to
   make it work. But it means we have one more solution to the situation
   in Libya. It's not a big fix, but it's helpful."

   Jumping off point to Europe

   Libya has become the main conduit for Africans fleeing war and poverty
   trying to reach Europe, since former leader Moammar Gadhafi was toppled
   in a NATO-backed uprising in 2011.

   People smugglers have exploited the turmoil to send hundreds of
   thousands of migrants on dangerous journeys across the central
   Mediterranean although the number of crossings dropped sharply from
   2017 amid an EU-backed push to block arrivals.

   Many are picked up at sea by the EU-funded Libyan Coast Guard, which
   sends them back, often to be detained in squalid, overcrowded centers
   where they face beatings, rape and forced labor, according to aid
   workers and human rights groups.

   The UNHCR has said there are about 4,700 people from countries
   including Eritrea, Somalia, Ethiopia and Sudan in Libya's detention
   centers.

   A July airstrike by opposition forces that killed dozens of detainees
   in a center in Tripoli has increased pressure on the world to find a
   safe haven for the refugees and migrants.

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