Illegal migration must be solved at source, not just Libyan shores: Deputy PM for Services Affairs

By Libya Herald reporter.

Tunis, 1 June 2015:

Illegal migration should be solved at source as well as on Libya’s shores, Libya’s Deputy Prime Minister for Services Affairs Abdelsalam Al-Badri said on Sunday.

”There is another issue we are suffering from and one that we have become a party to in one way or another, and that is the issue of illegal migration that is debated in the corridors of the international community, and especially the European Union’’, Al-Badri said, speaking at the Abdullah Thinni government press conference in the eastern city of Al-Beida.

”The EU sees that it should protect Europe by closing off Libyan shores. We do not object to the prevention of (illegal) migration. It should be codified’’, he agreed.

However, from a humanitarian point of view, he noted that ‘’The drowning of migrants in the Mediterranean and the silence regarding it, is a stain that history will remember from a moral perspective and in terms of the deliberate negligence in the commitment of the international community’’.

”But we will not allow the intrusion on Libyan sovereignty and we do not mind preventing migration but this must have two forms of prevention. It should be prevented at the source and prevented at the ports of export’’.

”We should as a Libyan authority be given the ability to protect our borders and the Libyan arms embargo must be lifted or they (the international community) should protect the borders’’, Al-Badri complained.

‘‘As well as a policy of development at the source of (illegal) migration (the international community) should help the Libyan state in stemming the great human flow’’.

”I think that we are facing many problems due to the political instability and the presence of four wars and due to the presence of IS and Libya Dawn Libya and problems in the South and East – problems that all need support. It is a haemorrhage that we pray that god stops and soon’’. [/restrict]