The U.N. High Commissioner of Refugees (UNHCR) evacuated 262 people on Nov. 12 out of Libya to its Emergency Transit Mechanism in Niger, according to UNHCR statistics.
The 139 men, 42 women and 81 children were held in detention facilities in and around Tripoli, and some of them were living in the urban community.
The UNHCR has evacuated many refugees and displaced people out of Libya Nov. 9-15, the largest evacuation campaign carried out by the UNHCR in 2018, according to the statistics.
UNHCR also said 12 states vowed on Nov.14 to provide a total of 3,886 resettlement places for evacuees and refugees from Libya.
As part of its efforts to support internally displaced persons (IDPs), UNHCR and U.N. partners visited Tawergha (293 kilometers east of Tripoli to assess their needs. They also visited the al-Sarraj IDP settlement in Tripoli where 40 families live, in addition to distributing winter assistance to 2,270 IDPs in Benghazi.
“An estimated of 5,400 refugees and migrants are presently held in detention centers in Libya, of whom 3,900 are of concern to UNHCR,” according to the statistics.
Libya has become a preferred departure point for illegal immigrants hoping to cross the Mediterranean into Europe because of the lack of security in the North African country following the 2011 uprising that toppled late leader Muammar Gaddafi.
Heavy shelling and fighting occasionally occur in residential neighborhoods. The fighting has put more pressure on aid agencies to help growing numbers of Libyans and foreigners without access to food, medicines and health care.
In August, the U.N. refugee agency said it had evacuated about 300 refugees and migrants held in the Ain Zara detention center to a safer site because they “were in clear danger of getting caught in the hostilities.” Most of the evacuated were from Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia — all nations suffering from conflict or political repression.
Aid agencies say the vast majority of the migrants, refugees and asylum seekers had tried to reach Europe by boat, but were intercepted at sea and returned to Libya. The EU has spent hundreds of millions to equip and train Libya’s coast guard and enhance border security cooperation with several African nations.
