The National Committee for Human Rights in Libya (NCHRL) expressed its rejection of any project to settle African migrants and refugees in Libya and turn the country into an alternative homeland for them.
The NCHRL called on the European Union to lead a project in which the countries of origin, transit, and destination cooperate in order to address the phenomenon of migration, in a manner that protects the basic rights of migrants in general and refugees in particular.
This came in a statement by NCHRL, in conjunction with the celebration of International Migrants Day.
The NCHRL called on the European Union and its member states to reconsider their efforts “aimed at limiting the ability of migrants to reach Europe’s shores, given the human losses resulting from these policies.”
The committee said that European policies “are inconsistent with humanitarian values, international humanitarian law, and international asylum law.” It added: “The European Union countries must not overlook the humanitarian nature of the refugee and migrant crisis whereby people flee to Europe from countries where there are no necessities of life and where they suffer poverty, unemployment, instability, and violence.”
The NCHRL also expressed its concern about the fate of African migrants and refugees returning to Libya from Europe, and “the violations they are subjected to in terms of physical and psychological torture, ill-treatment and violence, in addition to exploitation in private businesses and traffic by gangs and human trafficking networks.”