Macron to Libya: Stop putting refugees in camps
PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron called on Libyan authorities Monday to stop holding transiting refugees in detention camps and said buildings of the United Nations’ refugee agency were attacked earlier in the day.
Macron did not elaborate on the attacks he said were carried out on buildings of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. He said France should provide security for vulnerable refugees fleeing their homelands and end the “confinement” in Libya.
Macron met with U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi and the director general of the International Organization for Migration on Monday, when European ministers in Paris tried to find agreement on dealing with Europe-bound migrants who use Libya as a steppingstone.
Under a deal with the European Union, Libyan vessels apprehend refugees and migrants setting out across the Mediterranean Sea and drag them back to the North African country, where battles between two opposing leaders are in progress around Tripoli.
The day began with talks among European interior and foreign ministers. Macron announced that eight countries have signed on to a French-german initiative to cooperate in a burden-sharing mechanism.
Absent from the closed-door meeting of European Union interior and foreign ministers was Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini. He tweeted a day earlier his strong disagreement with letting France and Germany determine the bloc’s refugee policy.
“We intend to make ourselves respected,” Salvini declared in another tweet.
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said talks would continue about how an ad hoc mechanism might look that would make it possible for Italy and Malta to open their harbors.