EU-African summit and youth migration

It has been reported that up to 700,000 African refugees are in Libya. It is also known that 5,000 migrants have, in recent times, died in the Mediterranean Sea in their search for “greener pastures”.

Last week, it was announced that African refugees/migrants were being sold into slavery in Libya.

It was not surprising that the 5th European Union-African Union (EU-AU) summit was devoted to African youth migration to Europe and job creation in Africa.

Some 55 African leaders and 28 government representatives of European countries met from November 29 to 30, 2017 in Abidjan, the commercial capital of Cote d’Ivoire, and deliberated on how to stem the flow of African youth into Europe through northern African countries, especially Libya.

Talks at the summit were about how to create jobs and improve education facilities in Africa.

There were also talks about how to repatriate some 700,000 African migrants/refugees trapped in Libya. Libya has not been a stable country since the overthrow of Col. Muamar Gaddafi in 2011.

Militia groups that fought together to topple Col. Gaddafi turned their guns on themselves after the war, and battled one another for supremacy and the booty.

African refugees/migrants have been trapped in places of conflict in detention camps and some were reportedly being sold as slaves for $400 a person.

It came out at the summit that the EU had planned to halt youth migration from Africa into Europe.

It had been reported that European countries were willing to pledge eight billion euros towards uprooting the “root causes of migration – poverty and conflict”.

The EU and the AU representatives have planned at the African summit to launch a “joint task force to dismantle traffickers and criminal networks”.

The task force will also work to “save and protect lives of migrants and refugees along the routes and inside Libya”.

French President Emmanuel Macron told the news media in Abidjan that the task force would be a military operation with France taking part.

He said the “emergency operation is a concrete military and police initiative that will take place in the next few days”.

President Macron made those disclosures after meeting with African, Italian, German, Spanish, Chadian, DR Congolese, Libyan, Moroccan and EU leaders at the summit.

He added that the Libyan authorities had agreed to allow access “to the camps where barbaric scenes have been identified”.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker reiterated that the EU planned to invest 44 billion euros in Africa by 2020 through European public-private partnerships on projects that would create jobs.

Africa’s population was 1,225,080,510 in 2016 and 1,256,268,025 in 2017. The population of Africa is expected to double by 2050. About 60 per cent of Africa’s population is under 25 years of age.

For lack of employment at home, some African young men and women take hazardous journeys through the Sahara Desert to Libya from where they travel in makeshift boats across the Mediterranean Sea to Europe.

Many have died in the process. A few were rescued by boats patrolling the sea.

It is appropriate that European countries have decided to stop the flow of illegal African migrants into Europe for jobs and improved standards of living.

There have been, however, complaints from European youth civil society groups that they were not given a hearing at the Abidjan summit.

The groups saw the summit as a wasted opportunity to find lasting solutions to the problems of illicit African migration into Europe.

However, Donald Tusk, President of the EU Commission, has reacted by stating that both African and European youths had been heard at a summit “which brought a new energy to our discussions”.

On the criticism that the Abidjan summit side-lined relevant issues on the agenda of the summit, the European Commission President stated that the EU plans to invest more in Africa were on equal basis.

“The partnership between African Union and the European Union is a partnership between equals,” he explained.
Email: therson.cofie@yahoo.com