Acting Foreign Minister Taher Al-Baour reiterated the Tripoli government’s line that it rejects any migrant resettlement project.
Al-Baour was speaking after a demonstration of about 1,500 people, led by very active group of NGO activists, blocked-off the entrance of the UNHCR Tripoli headquarters in the Sirraj district of Tripoli.
The demonstration is provoking or taking advantage of a swelling wave of anti-immigrant sentiment in Libya. The sentiment is, like the case in the USA and Europe, are using the beleaguered migrants as a lightning rod to express grievances with other issues.
Speaking live on Arabic-language media, Al-Baour affirmed that there is no migrant resettlement project in Libya, and that will not accept this matter or discuss it in any way.
He said migrant resettlement is a sovereign decision, and no organisation (meaning the UNHCR) can force Libya to do so. He stressed that Libya is unable to bear the financial burden of dealing with such large numbers of illegal migrants. He added that Libya is not prepared to spend billions of dollars annually on transit migration.
Public mistrust of the weak Libyan government
However, despite numerous pronouncements by the Tripoli government to the contrary, the public do not believe the government.
They see with their eyes the increasing number of illegal migrants over the years in their hundreds of thousands if not millions but see announcements of voluntary repatriations in the hundreds or low thousands.
The public believe the Tripoli government has no power to resist a secret drive by the EU to settle, or resettle, illegal migrants or refugees – so that Europe can solve its migration problem.
