Expulsion of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) from Libya

Human Rights Concern – Eritrea (HRCE) wishes to express its deep concern and disappointment at the news that the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has been forced to cease all activities in Libya. The Libyan authorities gave no reason for this inhuman decision.

There is now effectively no protection, no assistance, no resettlement, and no solutions for the 9,000+ refugees and 3,700+ asylum seekers registered with UNHCR. How will they receive healthcare, shelter, education and vocational training when they can all be treated as illegal immigrants by a government which is not a signatory to the Geneva Convention? Where will the Palestinians, Iraqis, Sudanese, Somalis, Eritreans, Liberians and Ethiopians go? What will happen to those in prison? The prisoners have been incarcerated for years for the ‘crime’ of entering Libya to seek asylum.

There is no other programme in Libya to help any of these people. There is nothing in place to help those who will continue to arrive seeking a safe haven from torture, imprisonment, and worse.

What vestige of hope remains for the 12 Eritrean and 10 Somalian female detainees who were taken from Meserata prison on Thursday 10^th June 2010 to an unknown destination? What will happen to those people, and to those who will be ignored by coastguards in Malta and Italy as they perish in the sea? 80 Eritreans drowned at the end of May 2010, under the indifferent gaze of the Italian coastguards, as witnessed by the 5 survivors. This, from a country which is a signatory to the Geneva Convention and a member of the EU, so what can we expect from Libya, which is neither!

These people will now become more at risk of exploitation by smugglers, the corrupt Libyan security and police, and will be subjected to the kind of treatment received by the 10 African refugees, including Eritreans, who were killed recently after being held for more than two months in secret underground locations in Sinai, Egypt. Human traffickers are holding 20 victims altogether and demanding $5000 U.S. from each asylum seeker who has been trapped on their way to safety in Israel and elsewhere. Extreme methods of torture are used to force the victims or their family to make illegal payments.

Will this kind of illegal and inhuman activity become normal in Libya too, now that there is no protection, and no registration, for those already there and those about to arrive?

HRCE appeals to all international Human Rights organisations and communities, including the AU, the UN and the EU, to put pressure on the Libyan government to reinstate UNHCR and its activities.

Elizabeth Chyrum

Director

21 June 2010

London, U.K.