Kuwait offers voluntary return home to stranded migrants in Libya

The International Organization of Migration (IOM) is providing a voluntary return home to stranded migrants in Libya, it has announced.
"Three years after the fall of the former regime, the Libyan people find themselves no closer to realizing their aspirations for a better future," the IOM said in a press release from its headquarters in Geneva on Tuesday. "Security conditions continue to deteriorate and life remains hard, particularly for migrants." According to IOM Libya Chief of Mission Othman Belbeisi, an estimated 150,000 migrant workers remain stranded in the country, but some progress is being made in helping the most vulnerable to return home voluntarily.
"We now have approximately 340 more migrants in the pipeline - plus potentially another 300 or so from Senegal. They include 168 from Burkina Faso, 50 from Togo and 21 from Nigeria," Belbeisi added in the same release.
In the past few weeks, departures, assisted by local partners, have included 27 Kenyan victims of human trafficking, he noted.
Identifying migrants in need of repatriation has not been difficult. Finding ways to get people who have lost their passports and other official documents to safety is much harder. "Libya's borders with Tunisia and Egypt remain practically closed to undocumented migrants," observed Belbeisi.
One of the consequences has been a flood of migrants trying to leave Libya and reach Italy in unseaworthy, overcrowded boats - a route that IOM estimates cost around 3,200 migrants their lives in 2014.
Meanwhile, the IOM is also assisting migrants and displaced Libyan nationals with essential non-food relief items to help them cope with cold winter conditions.
The IOM has just finished distributing some 1,900 kits, including mattresses, blankets and cooking utensils, to displaced families and migrants in detention centers, it added. The distributions took place in Tripoli, Obari, Misrata and Bani Walid, and were funded by the European Union and Germany
Last year, 354 migrants - representing 13 different nationalities - were able to leave Libya with IOM's assistance. The largest groups came from Sudan, Yemen, Sri Lanka, Ethiopia and Nigeria, it concluded.