The flow of illegal migrants on the Central Mediterranean route through Libya has “decreased significantly,” diplomat Pascal Teixeira and migration officer at the French Embassy in Cote d’Ivoire, said in Abidjan.
“With regard to the flow of irregular migration, there has indeed been a fairly significant decline in migrants on what has been called the Central Mediterranean Route through Libya. It’s less than 90 percent of the flows by this route. Even on what has been called the Western Mediterranean route through Morocco, since the beginning of the year we are less than 50 percent compared to the same period last year,” Teixeira said on Wednesday.
He was speaking at the press conference that closed the 2nd regional conference on the fight against the smuggling of migrants and trafficking in human beings.
Several recommendations were made during the conclave, which brought together a dozen countries of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), European countries and international organisations in the Ivorian economic capital since Tuesday.
These include the strengthening of judicial and police cooperation between West African states and the upgrading and harmonisation of national legislation. “Countries really need to cooperate with each other. The upgrading of legislation is also very important in this fight,” the French diplomat added.
“We are in the process of setting up a cooperation mechanism to make progress in the fight against the smuggling of migrants and trafficking in human beings,” said the Comptroller General of Police, Nebout Jean-François, who is also a diplomatic adviser to the Ivorian Ministry of Security.
Chantal Lacroix, the representative of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), said that the aim is to put in place a strategy to combat the smuggling of migrants and trafficking in humans.
The regional conference is part of the follow-up mechanism to the 2018 Niamey Joint Declaration made by the Ministers of Interior and Foreign Affairs of several ECOWAS countries in the fight against migrant smuggling.
The objective of the Abidjan meeting was thus to measure the progress made in the implementation of the commitments resulting from the Niamey Declaration, to present good practices and to consider the prospects for combating the smuggling of migrants and trafficking in humans.
LB/ls/lb/as/APA