The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has started a mass evacuation of 4000 illegal immigrants from Libya to Niger after they had registered their names at the Nigerien embassy in Libya wishing to return home.
The evacuations officially began this week (06/12) with the arrival of the first of eight charter flights carrying 504 migrants, including women and young children at the Diori Hamani International Airport in Niamey, according to the IOM spokesperson, Joel Millman, who was speaking in a presser in Geneva on Friday.
Milliman explained that IOM was providing technical and logistic support for the registration, profiling, reception and onward transportation of the returning migrants, under the Migrant Resource and Response Mechanism (MRRM) financed by the European Union.
"IOM staff from operations, protection, medical, logistics, finance, information management, reintegration, community stabilization and communication units were at the airport to welcome, register, profile, provide food and water and facilitate the transportation of the returnees to their villages of origin." He indicated.
The spokesperson also explained that the IOM is cooperating with Niger to see the potentials of the socio-economic reintegration of migrants arriving in the following weeks from Libya.
He remarked that after the successful reception of the first charter on Friday, there has been an officially confirmed announcement about the plans for seven additional charters carrying 500 migrants each, one per day, from Wednesday December 06 onwards, to transport the total 3,850 Nigerian migrants now registered in Tripoli.
"IOM staff in Agadez are now assisting the 10th convoy of migrants arriving from Algeria as they prepare themselves for possible mass evacuations of stranded migrants from its northern borders." He added.
Meanwhile, Milliman further added at the Friday presser that about 176 immigrants from Guinea arrived Thursday in Conakry airport after being detained in Libya's migrants' centers.
