Switzerland to host first group of refugees in April

Some 42 refugees from Libya are scheduled to arrive in Switzerland in early April, as part of an emergency operation agreed upon by the Swiss government and the UN refugee agency to evacuate endangered migrants from Libyan detention centers, local media on Wednesday.

In December 2017, Switzerland agreed with UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to up to 80 refugees in particular need of protection from Libyan detention centers, according to Swissinfo, the website of the national broadcaster.

The UNHCR estimated then that about 5,000 people, including women, children and unaccompanied minors, were in need of particular protection and had to be evacuated from Libya where they were in a precarious situation, such as exploitation, abuse, torture, sexual violence, and even human trafficking and slavery.

According to Switzerland's State Secretariat for Migration (SEM), the first group of refugees, mostly vulnerable single women who have been evacuated from Libya to Niger, were expected to arrive in April.

Currently the UNHCR plans to evacuate 10,000 people from Libya. So far it has already evacuated 1,376 people, of whom 312 have gone to Italy, two to Romania and the rest to Niger for resettlement processing, while France has also taken a small group from Niger.

"We are asking Switzerland and also other European countries and countries outside Europe to take more, because we really need to make sure that we evacuate as many people as possible from Niger," said Vincent Cochete, UNHCR special envoy for the central Mediterranean situation.

He hoped that Switzerland will be able to take more refugees from Libya via Niger in the future.