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The head of the United Nations Migration Agency on Thursday urged the Libyan authorities not to detain migrants rescued or intercepted by the country's coastguards.
William Lacy Swing, of the International Organization for Migration, said: had "suggested" to Libyan officials that IOM and themselves "were trying to break the link" between the migrants captured in the sea and put in detention.
Migrants brought to Libya from the Mediterranean should instead be taken to a "reception center" Mr. Swing added that since the end of November, IOM had helped repatriate by air 35,000 migrants who had been detained in detention centers in Libya.
10,000 more were repatriated from Libya by land via Agadez to Niger.
A November summit in Abidjan saw the creation of a working group consisting of the European Union, the Union, the IOM and the UN agency. United Nations Refugee Agency UNHCR
The group aimed to expedite the evacuation of thousands of migrants in response to indignation caused by media images of a slave market in Libya [19659008]. Thousands of migrants have crossed 5,000 kilometers (5,000 kilometers) of land borders in southern Libya trying to reach the Mediterranean and cross the border into Europe.
The flow of migrants across Libya surged after Gaddafi's overthrow and death in 2011, with traffickers exploiting the country's chaos to send tens of thousands of people each year over a distance of 300 kilometers from the Mediterranean until in Italy. 2018 AFP
