North Hills,CA– European and African leaders met at a summit in Ivory Coast on Wednesday agreeing on a plan to evacuate the migrants stuck in the Libyan detention camps.
Leaders from France, Germany, Niger, Chad and Libya reacted to the footage CNN released last month of slave auctions in Libya’s detention camps.
Thousands of African refugees have found themselves in Libya hoping to reach Europe by sea. Around 3,000 people have died each year for the past four years crossing the Mediterranean Sea.
The Libyan Coast Guard cracked down on boats smuggling refugees with the help of the E.U. funding them. Many of the refugees have been stuck in the popular transit center between Africa and Europe– Libya.
An estimated 400,000 to 1 million migrants or refugees remain in Libya according to Time.
The European Union and the African Union plan to fly up to 15,000 people out of Libya. It requires source countries to take back their citizens. Libya’s government will need to allow the U.N. evacuation planes to land.
The president of France Emmanuel Macron said the slave auctions were “a crime against humanity.” He’s promised to accept at least 3,000 migrants from Chad and Niger in the next two years.
The detention camps have increasing reports of robbery, rape and murder according to the U.N. human rights agency. Libya agreed to open a transit center for vulnerable refugees.
The U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley described the slave auction houses as there being few human rights and human dignity violations than slavery.
Monica Villacorta
Contribution by Time, theguardian
Image: Time
Video: Al Jazeera
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