We’ll Not Take Lightly Maltreatment of Our Citizens, ECOWAS Warns North African Countries

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has said it will not take lightly the maltreatment of its citizens across countries in northern Africa.

The president of the ECOWAS Commission, Marcel Alain de Souza, said this while presenting the Status Report on the state of the community to the Second Ordinary Session of the ECOWAS Parliament in Abuja.

De Souza was represented by the commission’s Vice President, Edward Singhatey.

Following the presentation of the report, parliamentarians raised concerns over efforts made by the sub-regional bloc to investigate reports on African migrants being maltreated and sold into slavery in some North African countries, notably Libya.

Some members of parliament also expressed concerns over the requests made by Tunisia to be an observer country and Morocco to be a member of ECOWAS respectively, in spite of reported abuse against African

migrants in those countries.

The commission’s president, however, called for thorough investigation of such reports and judicial enquiries to be made to ensure that perpetrators of acts of abuse are brought to justice.

“The problem is that at this point in time, we do not have anything official from Morocco or Tunisia. We hear about it but there is no proper or thorough investigation and there is nothing documented.

“With regard to their inclusion in ECOWAS, they will be bound to ensure that they look after our citizens within their shores; but at the end of the day, there is no guarantee with regards to that.

“Through engagement we will be able to put our interests forward to ensure that these states know that we do not take likely the maltreatment of any of our community citizens and what is happening across North Africa right now is unacceptable.”