African Union to bring 20,000 stranded migrants home from Libya in the next six weeks
The African Union on Thursday, said that it aims to bring 20,000 stranded migrants Africans home in the next six weeks.
Pressure has grown on the continental body and individual
African states to get their citizens out of Libya after CNN broadcast a
report showing black Africans being sold as slaves in the north African
country.
The African Union had earlier said it wanted to repatriate
15,000 migrants by the year's end, but increased its goal after a task
force - including AU, European Union and United Nations officials -- met
earlier this week.
"The immediate focus of the task force will be on the
repatriation, within the next six weeks, of the 20,000 migrants
currently in identified government-controlled detention centres who have
expressed the wish to leave Libya," the AU said in a statement
yesterday.
The group is also working to organise consular services for
stranded migrants and landing rights for airlines that can fly migrants
out of Libya, the statement said.
Individual African countries have started their own
repatriation programs, with Nigeria, the source of the majority of
undocumented migrants trying to reach Europe from Libya, bringing home
144 people earlier this week.
Rwanda has also offered to take in as many as 30,000 migrants who have suffered abuse and slave-like conditions in Libya.
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