Slave Markets: Macron wants European & African Leaders to help Evacuate Persons trapped in Libya
French President, Emmanuel Macron has said he will
ask European leaders to help evacuate Africans in danger in Libya, after
reports appearing to show African migrants being traded there sparked
international outcry
“I will propose that Africa and Europe come to the rescue of the
people trapped in Libya, by bringing massive support to the evacuation
of people in danger,” Macron said in a speech in Burkina Faso on
Tuesday.
Macron also sought to make a clean break from his predecessors,
saying that he came from a generation that would not tell Africans what
to do and would focus his efforts on bridging ties between Africa and
Europe.
“I am from a generation that doesn’t come to tell Africans what to
do,” Macron said during a speech to university students in the Burkinabe
capital Ouagadougou.
“I am from a generation for whom Nelson Mandela’s victory is one of the best political memories.”
Macron is on a three-day visit to West Africa that includes an EU-Africa summit in Ivory Coast’s capital Abidjan.
“I will not stand by those who say the African continent is one of crises and misery.
“I will be alongside those, who believe that Africa is neither a lost continent nor one that needs to be saved.”
West African migrants were being bought and sold openly in modern-day slave markets in Libya, survivors had told a UN agency helping them return home.
Libyan authorities have inaugurated a formal investigation into slave auctions in the country following an exclusive CNN report earlier this week, the government said on Friday.
“A high-level committee has been convened encompassing
representatives from all the security apparatus to oversee this
investigation,’’ Anes Alazabi, an official with the internationally
recognised government of Libya’s Anti-Illegal Immigration Agency said.
“Priorities of the investigation are not only to convict those
responsible for these inhumane acts, but also to identify the location
of those, who have been sold in order to bring them to safety and return
them to their countries of origin.’’
Watch a report on the discovery of the slave auction:
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