N. Africa ‘not Malta and Italy’ bearing brunt of Libya war

The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) yesterday said the EU was making a mountain out of a molehill when it claimed that many refugees from the Libyan conflict were ending up on European shores.

According to a spokesman, “facts show otherwise”, as in reality North African states have so far received the vast majority of people fleeing the Libyan conflict.

“Since February, at the start of the Libyan conflict, 665,000 people have fled Libya. Of these, only 5,182 arrived in Malta and Italy. The others went to neighbouring countries, such as Tunisia, Egypt, Niger, Algeria, Chad and Sudan,” Andrej Mahecic, a spokesman for the UNHCR, told a briefing on the Libyan migration crisis. He said that, while the UNHCR has repeatedly called on the EU to show real solidarity with its member states on the frontline with Libya, particularly Malta and Italy, “it is wrong to say that Europe is carrying the brunt of the migration problem resulting from this conflict, as North African countries are those carrying the most”.

According to the figures given by UNHCR and other aid agencies, only 0.8 per cent of those who have fled Libya so far have arrived in the two Mediterranean EU countries.

UNHCR’s opinion was shared by Jean-Philippe Chauzy from the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), which is working with the Libyan refugees both in Tunisia and Egypt.

“I think we need to put these numbers into context,” he said.

“You’ve got more than 600,000 people who have left Libya and transited through neighbouring countries. Tunisia and Egypt have kept their borders open, Chad, Mali and others have done the same,” he said.

“We would like to highlight the fact that the brunt of this crisis in Libya is being basically taken care of by the countries in northern Africa, primarily by Tunisia itself, with more than a quarter of a million people arriving there, and by Egypt and the other countries in the region.”

According to UNHCR, an estimated 30,000 Libyan civilians fled their homes in the Western Mountains and crossed into southern Tunisia over the past three weeks. Most of the refugees are ethnic Berbers, who wanted to escape the fighting and shelling of their towns and villages, Mr Mahecic said.

“The vast majority of (these) Libyan refugees are hosted by the local Tunisian communities, demonstrating once again their great generosity,” he said.

Following the arrival of several thousand Tunisians and Libyans in Lampedusa and Malta some weeks ago, both Italy and Malta made appeals to the European Commission to activate an emergency mechanism provided by the EU treaty to be used in case of a massive influx of refugees at the EU’s borders.

However, the Commission refused to give in and said the numbers did not justify the use of such a mechanism, which has never been used since being put in place in 2001.

Instead, the Commission proposed an extension to a pilot project put in place in 2008 specifically for Malta to resettle refugees in other EU member states. As for the Tunisians arriving in Italy, the Commission said they were economic migrants and should be sent back to Tunisia.

Meanwhile, yesterday the Commission “welcomed” a joint letter sent to Commission President Barroso from Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi and French President Sarkozy on the need to revise the provisions of the visa-free Schengen travel code.

The letter, which does not include any concrete proposals, “goes in a good direction”, according to Oliver Bailly, a spokesman for the Commission. Stating that it “opens channels for reflection”, he added, however, that the Commission was not planning any revision of the Schengen rules.