With the number of boat people crossing the Mediterranea declining as a result of better policing, the United Nations has now started to bring refugees by air into Europe.

The United Nations (UN) started Friday with the airlifting of so-called “vulnerable refugees” from Libya to Italy. The UN refugee organization UNHCR announced this on Friday. It concerns 162 refugees regarded by the UN as “vulnerable”, such as children, the elderly and women. They were transferred to an aircraft of the Italian Air Force, with more flights to follow later.

This is the first time that the UN has transported refugees from Libya to Europe, handing them over to the EU. Some 18 000 people are detained in detention centers for migrants in the North African country, reports Reuters news agency. By European standards, conditions are considered “bad” in Libya. “Some evacuated people have suffered terribly. They were stuck in inhumane conditions, “said the UNHCR official responsible for the Mediterranean region.

Next year the UNHCR hopes to evacuate 10 000 people from the camps in Libya. Apparently, they “will not all come to Italy”. A section of the refugees are supposed to be taken back by the African countries where they came from.

Human traffickers

Since Gaddafi was deposed by the Obama administration in 2011, some 600 000 migrants have made the crossing from Italy via Libya. Usually they pay human traffickers to ensure the voyage across. They put the refugees on rickety boats, which often sink. According to news agency AP, at least 3 100 people were killed this year. In Libya itself, including in the camps, the migrants are exposed to ill-treatment and torture, aid organization Oxfam observed this summer. Some are even traded as slaves.

In August this year, the number of migrants crossing the Mediterranean from Libya fell by more than half. The Italian and Libyan Coast Guard had joined forces to stop the flow of boat refugees. Aid organizations that rescue refugees and brought them to Italy were banned from the sea. Libyan and Italian naval vessels have started to drag boats with migrants back to Libya.

But now the United Nations has created an “air bridge” into Europe, with thousands more refugees to be deposited on the Old Continent in this way.