Agency Habeshia: for Refugees in Libya must be a "Project of Protection and Protected Entry"

April 4, 2012 - The Agency welcomes Habeshia with deep sadness and sorrow the news of yet another tragic shipwreck, where they killed 10 Somali and Eritrean refugees from Libya, news came just a day that begins the mission of the Interior Minister Chancellieri in Libya. One can not grasp the symbolic value in all its drama of this event and stressed that the rights of migrants and refugees must be made absolutely central to the negotiations being conducted to ricontrattare the Treaty of "Friendship" Italo-Libyan.


The conditions in which migrants and refugees are forced to live in the "new Libya" are absolutely unacceptable. What we ask is that Libya is created for a Plan for the reconstruction of law and democratic institutions, that allows to strengthen structures to protect the rights, currently almost non-existent, so that this country is able to meet its obligations international commitments.


Committed to a plan that sees the entire international community, but especially the European Union and all countries that were in the front row in NATO operations. A plan that also envisages the establishment of protected access routes to Europe for at least some thousands of asylum seekers and refugees who are currently in Libya, with priority given to those belonging to vulnerable groups.


The CIR was presented last week operational proposals and policy recommendations to promote measures for protected incoming refugees humanitarian visas, re settlement, Protected Entry Procedures, humanitarian evacuations. To give refugees a chance other than to pay traffickers to cross the sea in makeshift boats and risk their lives, forced to an illegal entry into Italy and other European Union countries.


The 10 people who died around scorssi in the Mediterranean, is the same sea that has swallowed more scorsso year 1,500 people. We ask a commitment of all the European Union to find a solution to these human tragedies. We Habeshia Agency, we shared the operational proposals of the CIR, in an attempt to urge the European Union, to look seriously for ways and measures, to protect the lives of asylum seekers, sotraiendoli from the hands of traffickers, by dangerous journeys, offering them a 'adequate protection in the countries of transit and garantendoli a protected entry into the European Union.


Fr. Mussie Zerai