The United Nations called on the Libyan authorities to quickly release five thousand and six hundred migrants and refugees currently held in immigration centers in Libya, demanding guarantees for their protection or evacuation to a third neutral country.
“Migrants wishing to return to their countries of origin should be able to return whenever they wish, and no other tragedies can be allowed to happen again,” Deputy Secretary-General Farhan Haq said in a news conference at the UN headquarters in New York. “The protection of human life must be the highest priority. ” he added.
Haq said that UNHCR and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) appealed to the European Union and African Union to prevent the recurrence of what he described as “tragedy”, stressing that the arrest of those who left Libya after being rescued at sea should stop.
