IOM Press Briefing Note
Friday 04 March 2011
Spokesperson: Jemini Pandya
More than 640 migrants were evacuated from the Libyan port city of Benghazi by IOM yesterday, 3 March.
The migrants, all Bangladeshi, were taken in a road convoy by IOM and escorted by the Libyan Red Crescent to the Egyptian border crossing at Salum where IOM is providing humanitarian assistance including food, water, health care and other aid. IOM will then organize for their return home to Bangladesh in the days to come.
Another 300 migrants are being evacuated today, including 40 particularly vulnerable West African migrants. Fearing for their lives given the targeting of Sub-Saharan Africans and desperate to leave Libya, they had paid a human smuggler to take them to Egypt in a sealed and refrigerated truck.
In the past few days, IOM staff had located several thousand migrant workers from many nationalities in the port at Benghazi and the surrounding warehouses with the largest groups comprising Bangladeshi, Indian and Sudanese migrants. This morning, another 500 Bangladeshi migrants arrived at the port compound in a two-hour period.
As efforts to urgently evacuate those stranded in Libya continue, IOM is today evacuating a further 3, 633 Egyptians from Djerba to Cairo after assisting nearly 823 Egyptians on Thursday. An IOM-chartered vessel that left the Tunisian port of Sfax in the early hours of Wednesday morning, has now docked in Alexandria, carrying 1,450 Egyptian migrant workers. By the 7th March, IOM will have evacuated approximately 14,858 Egyptians from Tunisia.
In addition to the evacuation of Egyptian migrants, IOM has also organized another two flights today to take 346 Bangladeshi migrants home to Dhaka.
Increasing numbers of Bangladeshis, of whom there were an estimated 63,000 in Libya before the crisis, have managed to get across the borders. IOM staff in Ras Ajdir report that an estimated 6,000 Bangladeshis already on the Tunisian side of the border, decided to walk the 8km distance to a UNHCR camp today. In a five kms long column, the migrants carried their luggage as best they they can. Some of them, all young men, say they had walked from Tripoli to the Tunisian border.
Meanwhile, African migrants crossing the border in particular are recounting bitter tales of targeted treatment in Libya. Some Eritreans told IOM that in the 160kms from Tripoli to the Tunisian border, they had been stopped 20 times and totally dispossessed of all their money and belongings. A Chadian migrant recounted the increasing violence at night-time in Tripoli that had led to great terror among him and others.
In Egypt, where IOM is also providing registration and humanitarian assistance to migrants at the Salum border crossing, IOM has so far evacuated 1,079 migrants, mostly Bangladeshi but also including Ghanaian , Malians and Filipinos.
In Niger, where IOM has a migrant reception and transit centre in Dirkou, the Organization is gearing up the imminent arrival of another 534 AFrican migrants who arrived in the border area of Madama yesterday. In addition, approximately 2,500 Sub-Saharan African migrants are in Tumo, about 80 kms from Madama. The majority of those who have crossed the Niger border are Nigerien but among the 2,500 migrants in Tumo, IOM believes there are other African nationalities present.
The centre, which provides shelter, food and basic medical care, is currently hosting another 59 migrants including four women and four children. Among the group are two Malians.
Another 1,154 Nigeriens have already transited through the IOM centre in Dirkou and have been assisted by the Organization to get to Agadez.
Plans are underway to extend the current 400 migrant capacity at the centre given that much larger numbers of people are heading to Dirkou.
As the numbers of people fleeing Libya in need of assistance increase daily, a revised IOM appeal will be issued on Monday 7th March as part of the UN Flash appeal. The Organization has been greatly encouraged so far by the response it has had to a joint IOM-UNHCR appeal to evacuate tens of thousands of people fleeing Libya. The two organizations have established a joint humanitarian evacuation programme which aims to vastly enhance ongoing efforts to alleviate the humanitarian crisis at the Tunisian and Egyptian borders.
For further information, please contact:
In Ras Adjir/Djerba, Tunisia, Jean Philippe Chauzy, Tel: +41 79 285 4366, Email: pchauzy@iom.int
In Alexandria/Salum, Egypt, Chris Lom in Egypt, Tel: + 20101761.308, Email: clom@iom.int
In Geneva, Switzerland, Jemini Pandya, Tel: + 41 22 717 9486/+41 79 217 3374, Email: jpandya@iom.int