TRIPOLI – Libyan Prime Minister Abdallah al-Theni, has pleaded for European Union (EU) cooperation to set up measures that will aid the fight against illegal immigration.
Al-Theni stated this during the meeting with the EU Ambassadors accredited to Libya on Friday in Tripoli.
The PM stressed the need to consolidate the Libyan-European partnership and to set up a comprehensive mechanism to deal with illegal immigration and its political, security, legal and social impacts.
According to the Libyan government, he also stressed the need for the EU to help the transit countries to protect and control their borders, as well as in the repatriation of illegal immigrants to their countries of origin.
At the end of the meeting, an agreement was reached for the creation of three detention centres in Libya, from where illegal immigrants would be processed and repatriated to their countries.
Report says attempts by illegal immigrants, using Libya as a passage way to Europe, have increased in recent times, marked by tragedies and arrests.
According to statistics from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), 217 people have drowned off the Libyan coast while trying to cross the Mediterranean in 2014.
Libya, a transit and destination country for illegal immigrants, shares border with six other African countries.
It has been facing a huge influx of illegal migrants since the fall of Mouamar Khadafi regime in 2011.
Report says that Italy has rescued, in the past few weeks, more than 8,000 illegal migrants off its Lampedusa Island and that the country has received over 20,000 illegal migrants since the beginning of 2014. (PANA/NAN)