As the status of thousands of Africans stranded in Libya is becoming an urgent priority within the African Union, the State of Qatar has announced an investment of 20 million USD to help evacuate vulnerable populations, including women and children from the war-torn nation.
Musa Faki Mohamed, the chairperson of the commission and the Qatari Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani have launched a special fund to cover the cost of the returning migrants who are believed to be stranded with little social safety net in foreign countries.
The new initiative is said to have come from the Highness of the Gulf nation, SheikkhTamim bin Hamad Al Thani, the Emir of the oil rich nation and was signed last week.
The fund is to be used to support the humanitarian need of the migrants and alleviate the dire living conditions of irregular migrants that have become concerning, not just among African nations, but donors as well. There have been thousands of recorded deaths in the Mediterranean Sea.
The State of Qatar and the African Union are to work jointly in several other areas, including efforts to achieve the desired peace in the Darfur region of Sudan, and to discuss ways to find solutions to other issues stuck in the region, calling for concerted efforts to find radical and sustainable solutions to the issue of irregular migration and Integration of returning migrants to their countries.
For his part, Mohamed Faki Mohamed was said to praise the initiative as a bold initiative that will support and integrate African refugees to their communities of origin, which comes at a time when African refugees face slew of challenges on a dangerous and often a failed trip to a certain destination, including within the continent as well as to Europe.
The chair said, the initiative is to be a model of successful cooperation with the State of Qatar, will represent a radical solution to the phenomenon of non-formal asylum and the beginning of collective action to reduce the causes of the spread of this phenomenon, which exploited smuggling gangs in different parts of the continent, stressing that the phenomenon of irregular migration has a negative impact on all continents as well as supporting the refugee issue, which is a humanitarian issue that would save the fate of a large number of young people stranded in transit countries.
The issue has been a concern to all actors involved, including the UNHCR, which has targeted to
resettle refugees in their countries of origin in cooperation with, inter alia, the European Union and the United Nations, where UNHCR’s efforts succeeded in resettling 30,000 migrants from Libya, A small part of the number of refugees targeted by such initiatives.
Qatar’s Ambassador to Ethiopia and its delegate to the African Union Ambassador Hamad Al-Dosari told The Reporter of his appreciative of the recent visit on the chair to Qatar and are adamant that his nation would continue to help change the narrative of many, especially on the issues of migrant resettlement program as they face humanitarian issues.
“We are committed to the continent and confirm our commitment to be a partner as it moves forward,” he said.
