Migrants Abandon Dream of New Life to Fly Home

Tom Kington of the Times reports that thousands of African migrants facing rape, torture and extortion in Libyan detention centres are abandoning hopes of reaching Europe and instead queueing up to take charter flights back home under a scheme set up by the United Nations.

Nearly 10,000 migrants have accepted the offer of repatriation flights from Libya this year, outstripping expectations, partly because coastguard patrols have made it more difficult to cross the Mediterranean.

“We are targeting flights home for up to 12,000 migrants this year, after only about 2,000 last year,” Federico Soda, of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), a UN agency, said.

KJ