Libya’s Anti-Illegal Immigration Agency has deported 172 Sudanese refugees from the southeastern city of Kufra to the Sudanese border, the agency said in a statement on Sunday.
The group included individuals flagged for “security concerns” and others diagnosed with serious infectious diseases, according to the agency, which gave no further details on the operation or the identities of those removed.
Sudanese community representatives told Darfur 24 that several deportees were registered with the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) and had spent more than six months in Libyan detention centres. Most were transferred from Benghazi’s Qanfouda facility and from Kufra after a broad sweep targeting foreign nationals during last month’s Eid al-Adha holiday, they said.
Community leader Khaled A. warned that returning the refugees to Sudan could endanger their lives, citing recent military clashes in the border triangle where Libya, Sudan and Egypt meet. Witnesses report deteriorating humanitarian conditions in the area as fighting continues.
Libya hosts an estimated 313,000 Sudanese refugees, primarily in Kufra, Benghazi and Ajdabiya in the east, and in Misrata and Tripoli in the west, according to UNHCR figures from June.
