African refugees arrive from Libya through humanitarian corridor

By Michele Raviart

Aisha is 30 years old and has four children. The oldest is three years old, followed by two-year-old twins, while the youngest is six months old. She comes from the Central African Republic and tried six times to reach Europe via the Mediterranean Sea from Libya, where she returned each time and stayed four years, enduring the extremely difficult conditions in detention centres for those arriving there after crossing the desert. The family of five are among the 97 refugees - Eritreans, Ethiopians, Syrians, Somalis, Sudanese and South Sudanese - who arrived in Italy at Fiumicino airport thanks to humanitarian corridors.

First flight from Libya

Their arrival marks the first flight from Libya according to a protocol signed in December 2023 by the Italian Ministry of the Interior and Foreign Affairs together with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), the Community of Sant'Egidio, the Federation of Evangelical Churches and Italy's National Institute for Health, Migration and Poverty (INMP). The protocol envisages the arrival of 1,500 people over the next few years, who will be housed in facilities and with families throughout Italy. The children will go to school while the adults will attend Italian language classes and helped with finding jobs.

A new life journey

"They are particularly vulnerable people who arrived in Libya years ago," Marco Impagliazzo, president of the Community of Sant'Egidio, explained to Vatican News. "They have suffered a lot from the journeys, but also from detention, they come from African countries in great difficulty," he adds, "they are people who really need help and a welcome, to find a way for their future and to be treated, because many of them are ill. They will be here in Italy and above all they will be integrated by the communities that welcome them as the being a new path in life.

UNHCR notes dangers in Libya

UNHCR works in Libya struggling under difficult conditions and assisted these persons in distress. "Libya is not a safe haven," stresses Chiara Cardoletti, UNHCR representative for Italy, the Holy See and San Marino. "We know that for refugees Libya is still a very complicated country. There has not been much improvement until now. Libya has not signed the 1951 Refugee Convention and it is a country where we still see so many incidents even of major violence affecting women and men in the detention centres." Since 2017, almost eight thousand people have arrived in Italy, France and Belgium through the various protocols providing humanitarian corridors that offer one of the few legal instruments to deal with migration.