The situation of migrants, refugees or asylum seekers in Libya continues to deteriorate. And some people are now paying traffickers to go to Libyan detention centres, which they believe will give them a better chance of being identified by the United Nations for refugee resettlement programmes.
This is the sad observation made, on Wednesday 4 December in Brussels, by Vincent Cochetel, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees' (UNHCR) special envoy for the Central Mediterranean.
While recent European positions have focused more on Greece and the situation in the Aegean islands (see EUROPE 12361/18), the Special Envoy stressed that Libyans and other displaced persons in the country are increasingly suffering from the Libyan conflict, which is pushing more and more of them to leave the country for Tunisia.
In Libya, the UNHCR has counted 46,000 refugees and asylum seekers currently in detention centres or other urban settings, the UNHCR's task being to register these people. But access to people and to centres remains difficult, Cochetel said.
With regard to detention centres, the UNCHR can regularly visit some 20 of the 36 existing centres in the country (16 are empty or currently closed). Living conditions remain poor, and are even very serious in some centres whose names the UNHCR has not wanted to give, where repeated violence is perpetrated, including rape.
Two categories of people live side by side in these centres, Vincent Cochetel said: people who have tried to reach Europe and then returned after their attempt failed, and others who pay traffickers for better protection.
This surprising situation is explained by the fact that this second category can thus be more easily identified by the UNHCR as eligible for refugee resettlement or illegal migrant return programmes.
In 2019, there were 15,000 attempts to enter the EU from Libya and 56% of these people concerned were intercepted and returned to detention centres. But half of the people brought back did not stay and were released. Among these candidates for passage to the EU, a majority of them (around 5,000 people) were Sudanese, followed by Bangladeshi nationals (1,000).
Member States offer very few prospects for resettlement in the EU, with promises for 2020 amounting to 2,390 places for people in Libya, out of a total resettlement offer of 52,000 places.
The UNHCR is asking them to "do more". (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)