U.N. points finger as European Union defends its Libya migrant work

Mohamed Auajjar, flanked by fellow investigators Chaloka Beyani, left, and Tracy Robinson, addresses a news conference before presenting a report accusing the European Union of aiding migrant rights abuses on Monday. Presenting a report on Monday by a U.N.-commissioned fact-finding mission to Libya, investigator Chaloka Beyani said that EU assistance to Libya’s migration department and the coast guard “has aided and abetted the commission of the crimes,” including crimes against humanity. The report says migrants, some of whom might have been eligible for asylum, “were apprehended, detained, and disembarked in Libya solely to prevent their entry into Europe as a corollary of both European immigration policy and the economic agenda of migration in Libya via their subsequent detention and exploitation.” The EU’s executive branch, the European Commission, said it takes the allegations “very seriously” but insists that its work in Libya is vital and done in coordination with U.N. agencies such as the IOM and the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. Last year, EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson told the European Parliament that “the EU has devoted around EUR 700 million to Libya during 2014-20, including EUR 59 million ” for the coast guard and the coastal security administration. Spanish EU lawmaker Sira Rego, from the Left group, said that “for years the EU has allowed slavery in refugee detention camps in Libya, has been aware of the atrocities being committed there against migrants, and yet has continued to implement racist migration policies.” In Greece, a voluntary program by EU members to accept unaccompanied migrant children who arrived in the country officially ended Tuesday, raising concerns over the future of such minors, given that long-delayed asylum reforms are still being hammered out.