Today ASGI (through the Sciabaca and Oruka projects) has submitted to the Italian Government a request for access to information regarding the financing of one million euro granted to the UNHCR for an extraordinary evacuation action towards Rwanda of asylum seekers and refugees detained in detention camps in Libya. This is an unprecedented operation, as Rwanda is not an origin, transit or destination country for migrants involved.
Given the instability of the Libyan context and the extreme vulnerability of the persons concerned, ASGI intends to analyze the requested information and documents that the Government will disclose, to understand what activities are carried out and above all the guarantees for the beneficiaries’ fundamental rights.
The loan is part of the so-called “Africa Fund”, through which Italy has financed a series of measures aimed at limiting migration flows from Libya since 2017. In recent years, ASGI has repeatedly used the law on civic access or FOIA (Freedom of information Act) to exercise civil society’s right to promote the transparency of the public administration’s work, particularly in relation to Libya-related activities.
ASGI trusts that the government will timely provide all the requested information, with the sole possible exclusion of particularly sensitive data that could compromise security or international relations.
