Humanitarian truce in Libya not being respected - Minister
Libya – COVID-19 – Reply by M. Jean-Yves Le Drian, Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs, to a question in the National Assembly
Paris, 29 April 2020
The Libya crisis has changed in nature: foreign interference, the influx of mercenaries and violations of the embargo are fuelling a considerable deterioration in the situation. And everywhere, in particular in Tripolitania, the fighting is intensifying at this very moment, and civilians are the first victims of it.
This situation is combined with deadlock in the political process started in Berlin in January with all the stakeholders, including heads of State and government like President Putin, President Macron, President Sisi and US Secretary of State Pompeo; we were all there, including President Erdoğan, to agree on a political process. It hasn’t been implemented: on the contrary, each side is taking initiatives that undermine the very start of the political process. And against this backdrop, a few days ago, together with our European partners, we made a new appeal for a humanitarian truce during Ramadan, echoing the United Nations’ initiative.
Unfortunately that truce isn’t being respected, although it’s even more important in a period of COVID-19. And the Libya crisis is having a very significant impact on migration and on the situation of the migrants and refugees present in Libya.
We’ve supported the Malta initiative, which I hope will have an effect, and we’re constantly supporting the action of the UNHCR and the OIM, which are doing outstanding work with the refugees in Libya, even though today they had to suspend resettlement and voluntary repatriation programmes due to the COVID-19 crisis.
We’re building on this action by helping reorder the priorities of the emergency trust fund to ensure it’s more easily accessible to refugee populations in the context of COVID-19.
France has decided to support the Libyan response to the health crisis to the tune of €700,000, in coordination with the WHO. But the real response is the response to the political crisis that has been a permanent feature of the country for many years./.