James Atem
Africa-Press – South-Sudan. South Sudan’s government reached out to the Libyan authorities to rescue its citizens languishing in different detention centres.
Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Deng Dau Deng, said foreign missions in Sudan and Egypt have been directed to engage their Libyan counterparts to establish the whereabouts of the migrants and repatriate them.
“The situation in Libya is understandably dire, but our embassies in Khartoum and Egypt have been directed to work with Libyan embassies to try to reach South Sudanese detained in Libyan detention centers…We have not established their exact number, but they are spread across the western and eastern parts of the country. “Many are also in the northwest of the country,” Deng said.
This came after media reports about the unspecified number of South Sudanese languishing in various detention centres or wandering about in the North African nation.
It is said that most of them went there alongside other migrants from the region and the Middle East to transit to Europe through the Mediterranean Sea.
Unfortunately, some of them ended up being detained by Libyan authorities for lack of immigration documents, while many more fell into the hands of traffickers and armed groups.
Thousands of migrants trying to make it to Europe by boat through the Mediterranean Sea have been stationed in Libya for years now.
Deng said the majority of the South Sudanese migrants in Libya found their way through Sudan and Egypt.
He said most of them were detained due to a lack of proper immigration documents.
“We are not confirming their detention, but one can be detained for moving from one country to another without proper documentation, and Libya is a route to Europe through the Mediterranean Sea. So, we are also engaging the International Organization for Migration (IOM) because we understand that some of them could have crossed to Europe.”
“We had received the alert and even communicated with the Libyan government, but we did not have records from South Sudan to Libya,” he explained.
He added: “We will first ask them why they went there in the first place, and after which we will be able to discuss how we can move them back home.”
Deng said the government had earlier this year repatriated to Sudan more than 500 South Sudanese who were stuck in Libya.
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