A precarious truce in Tripoli appears to be largely holding following a conference in Berlin on Sunday, according to sources on the ground. After a few clashes were reported on Sunday night, the situation has become calm again.
Representatives from the international community met the Libyan warring parties in Berlin on Sunday, January 19. The summit was intended to broker a ceasefire and lasting peace for the country. But what was agreed and what could that mean for the more than 40,000 migrants in Libya?
An unknown number of migrants are being recruited in Libya to fight on both sides of the civil war, suspects the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR. That is according to reports from the German press agency dpa.
Roman Catholic priest Father Mussie Zerai, president of the humanitarian organization Habeshia and pastor to migrants who try to arrive in Italy, sent out a dramatic 'SOS' from migrants allegedly being held in detention centers in Libya.
On January 10 a statement from UNHCR Libya confirmed that the UN Refugee Agency was "deeply saddened by the deaths of two Eritrean asylum seekers in Tripoli, Libya." The men are believed to have been shot inside their accommodation.
The UN refugee agency UNHCR has published a series of "ambitious but achievable" recommendations for the Croatian and German presidencies of the EU Council to make 2020 "the year of change for robust refugee protection," according to a statement published on January 9.
Tunisia is preparing to accommodate a possible new influx of refugees fleeing the war in Libya and has chosen the site of Fatnassia to receive migrants who arrive.
Omar, which is not his real name, is from Sudan. When he told his story to InfoMigrants French, he was in an administrative detention center CRA in Rennes, on the point of being expelled. Here the 25-year-old recounts his migratory journey, which was marred by violence and betrayal.
In a statement, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said migrants and refugees in Libya "continue to be routinely subjected to violation and abuses.
In Libya, traffickers allegedly make migrants pay for a place in a closed detention center. They claim this is a fast-track method for the migrants to be evacuated and resettled in Europe. This information is false, but several hundred people have already fallen victim to the scam.
The French Ministry of Defense announced in February 2019 that it would deliver six semi-rigid speed boats with gun ports to the Libyan coast guard by Spring 2020. On December 2, the government announced they would be halting this delivery after several NGOs filed a lawsuit against the action.
The bodies of five migrants who died when a boat capsized in rough waters off the southern Lampedusa coast a week ago have been found, Italy's coast guard said on Sunday. This brings the overall death toll to 18.