A total of 15,791 migrants were intercepted this year in the Mediterranean Sea and returned to Libya, considered an “unsafe country”, according to records up to December 23, published this Tuesday by the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
The migratory route from the central Mediterranean to Europe, whose main departure points are Tunisia and Libya, has claimed the lives of 955 men, women and children, while another 1,316 people remain missing, making this year the deadliest since 2017, according to data from the international non-governmental organization (NGO) Doctors Without Borders (MSF), also cited by international organizations this Tuesday.
MSF blamed European policies of non-assistance and border externalization for the latest shipwreck off the coast of Libya, on the 16th, in which 61 migrants died, most of them from Nigeria and Gambia.
The NGO recently published a report denouncing abuse and mistreatment of asylum seekers and migrants in detention centers in Tripoli, the capital of Libya, where thousands of people are arbitrarily detained.
Non-governmental organizations that defend human rights question the expulsion to Libya of immigrants who arrive in Europe without documents, considering it “an unsafe country” and called on the European Union (EU) and the United Nations to “urgently review – and, if necessary, suspend the current cooperation agreements with the Libyan authorities” regarding interceptions in the Mediterranean.
In 2021, a total of 32,425 migrants were returned to Libya, and in 2022 there were 24,684, according to data from the IOM, which estimates that more than 700,000 migrants of around 40 nationalities reside in this North African country.
Source: TSF
