The International Organization for Migration, in collaboration with the Libyan and Somali Governments and with support from the European Union, facilitated the voluntary return to Mogadishu of 150 Somali migrants stranded in Libya. The majority of them had been held in Government-run detention centres.
Migrants in Libya are exposed to numerous risks, including smuggling, trafficking, kidnapping, abuse, detention, and torture. Through the Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM), IOM has tracked over 660,000 migrants in Libya. However, the true number could be closer to one million people.
“I lost everything in Libya; time, health and money,” said twenty-three-year-old Mohamed, who left Somalia for a better future. “But I will return to Somalia and start from scratch, build a better future away from the daydreams of illegal migration”, he added.
IOM is grateful to the Somali Government for the expediency in providing the returning migrants with the appropriate documentation and to the Libyan Governments for organizing exit visas.
“The support to these Somali nationals wishing to go back to Somalia is the positive result of close collaboration with the Somali Government and UNHCR,” said Othman Belbeisi, IOM Libya Chief of Mission.
“This was a massive undertaking between the Somali government and IOM and I am very glad that we are finally able to assist this number of migrants in desperate need of humanitarian return assistance. In the name of the Somali government, I would like to extend my sincere appreciation to IOM for their unwavering support to our migrants stranded in Libya,” stated Ambassador Ali Said Faqi, Special Envoy of the President of Somalia for Somali Migrants Stranded in Libya.
This is the fourth and largest voluntary humanitarian return of migrants from Libya to Somalia. The reintegration assistance in Somalia is part of the larger EU-IOM Joint Initiative for Migrant Protection and Reintegration, which facilitates orderly, safe, regular and responsible migration management through the development of rights-based and development-focused policies and processes on protection and sustainable reintegration.
Original source: IOM
Published on 31 May 2018
