In the EP in Brussels, MEPs exchange of views with Vincent COCHETEL, UNHCR Special Envoy for the Central Mediterranean Route, on humanitarian conditions in Libya. Statement by Linda McAVAN (S&D, UK), Chair of the Committee on Development.

Brussels

exchange of views

meeting

EU - Libya (T)

Committee on Development

McAVAN, Linda (S&D, UK)

COCHETEL, Vincent (FR)

Humanitarian conditions in Libya: extracts from the exchange of views with Vincent COCHETEL, UNHCR Special Envoy for the Central Mediterranean Route

SOUNDBITE (English), Vincent COCHETEL, UNHCR UNHCR Special Envoy for the Central Mediterranean Route, IOM (International Organization for Migration) has that statistic that 64%, six four, 64% of the people reaching Libya have reached their final destination. Libya has always attracted a lot of people who found work there in Liby. Now how many foreigners are in Libya? I don't know. The African Union is talking about 700,000 people, others are talking about 1 million, IOM has sort of softly registered through municipalities about 300,000. When it relates to refugees the number that that we have is 43,000. 43,000 refugees.

SOUNDBITE (English), Linda McAVAN (S&amp;D, UK), Chair of the Committee on Development, We are very concerned as a committee to hear about the reports on the CNN and the BBC, about human righst abuses, very concerned that the UN Commissioner for Human Rights condemend what is happening in LIbya. In particular, I think what what we heard the statement that was med that the increasing interventions of the EU and its Member States have done nothing so far to reduce the level of abuses suffered by migrants.

SOUNDBITE (English), Vincent COCHETEL, UNHCR UNHCR Special Envoy for the Central Mediterranean Route, Outside of the 43 thousand people that are living outside detention centres, we know that there is minimum of 2 thousand refugees in the 30 detention centres managed by the Government of National Accord. We know that they are many more in the other detention centres that are totally out of reach for us. And those detention centres are managed by diverse militias and various types of traffickers.

SOUNDBITE (English), Vincent COCHETEL, UNHCR UNHCR Special Envoy for the Central Mediterranean Route, We have taken note of the conclusions, at least the communique submitted in Abidjan. We try to do everything to accelerate the evacuation of refugees from Libya but you need to keep in mind that on the refugee side we have a limitation. We can only work with 7 nationalities. I repeat Iraqi, Syrians, Palestinians, Somali, Eritrean, Ethiopian if people are Oromo and Sudani if the people are from Darfur

SOUNDBITE (English), Vincent COCHETEL, UNHCR UNHCR Special Envoy for the Central Mediterranean Route, There are some elements among the Libyan administration who are colluding with some of the traffickers. And much more needs to be done. We know that the plan of the African Union, the European Union and the UN is to empty the detention centres in Libya but let&rsquo;s not fool ourselves. Every time we have got some people out of detention, those places are refilled and reused the day after.