The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has repatriated 130 illegal migrants from Libya to Niger on Monday, marking the first deportation operation in 2019, according to a statement by the UNHCR.
The statement pointed out that the number of people who have been repatriated from Libya by the UNHCR since December 2017, has reached 3,016 people.
It added that there are still thousands of refugees in governmental and non-governmental detention centers in Libya who live in difficult conditions.
About 800,000 illegal migrants are currently in Libya, 20,000 of whom are held in government detention centers, Head of the Libyan Presidency Council, Faiez Al-Sarraj, said in a Monday joint press conference with the President of Austria, Alexander Van der Bellen, in Vienna.
Article 33 of the Geneva Convention requires the contracting countries to “not expel or repel a refugee to the borders of territories in which his life or freedom would be threatened because of his race, his religion, his citizenship, his membership in a social group or its political opinions.”
The Libyan coastguard has been patrolling the Mediterranean Sea since inking a deal with Italy in February 2017, which empowered Libya to bring migrants back to the country and incarcerate them in detention facilities.
The number of illegal migrants from Libya to Europe has witnessed a large decline in 2018 due to the strict measures adopted by the Libyan authorities and the European Union, including Operation Sophia, the EU naval mission targeting human trafficking in the Mediterranean.
Migration continues to be a contentious topic in Europe, with governments attempting to enact harsher regulations to prevent refugees and displaced people entering the continent, and putting pressure on North African countries to keep migrants from crossing the border illegally.
