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IMMIGRATION

G7 urged to douse Libyan inferno

G7 nations including France and Britain came under pressure Saturday from Libya's neighbours to help put out the fires of a conflict that is already causing trouble further afield.

G7 urged to douse Libyan inferno
Leaders of the G7 and leaders of some African countries at the summit in Taormina. Photo: Stephane De Sakutin/POOL/AFP

The world's most powerful democracies were joined at annual summit talks by African leaders whose countries are all implicated in the migration crisis affecting Europe.

Lawlessness in Libya has facilitated the transit of hundreds of thousands of African migrants embarking on perilous voyages across the Mediterranean.

And it is now directly implicated in European terrorism after a Briton of Libyan extraction blew himself up at a Manchester concert, killing 22 people including several children.

“The fight against terrorism (in North Africa) demands that urgent measures be taken to extinguish the Libyan cauldron,” Niger's President Mahamadou Issoufou told the G7 countries.

Niger lies to Libya's south and Issoufou said a holistic approach was needed to deal with issues surrounding security, economy and extremist ideology.

He urged both the G7 and the United Nations to “devote the means necessary” to set up a rapid reaction force against regional jihadists sought by Niger and other countries in the Sahel region.

France and Britain, two of the G7's top military powers alongside the United States, face particular criticism for helping to topple the Libyan regime of Moamer Kadhafi in 2011 without planning sufficiently for the power vacuum that ensued as the country plunged into chaos.

British Prime Minister Theresa May, at the G7, said the Manchester suicide bomber's links to Libya “undoubtedly shine a spotlight on this largely ungoverned space on the edge of Europe”.

“So we must redouble our support for a UN-led effort that brings all the parties to the negotiating table and reduces the threat of terror from that region,” she said Friday.

In a meeting Saturday on the G7 margins with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi underlined the need for collective action on Libya.

The security challenge, in particular dealing with the proliferation of armed groups, would take “long months to stabilise”, Essebsi said, according to a French official.

IMMIGRATION

France ‘will not welcome migrants’ from Lampedusa: interior minister

France "will not welcome migrants" from the island, Gérald Darmanin has insisted

France 'will not welcome migrants' from Lampedusa: interior minister

France will not welcome any migrants coming from Italy’s Lampedusa, interior minister Gérald Darmanin has said after the Mediterranean island saw record numbers of arrivals.

Some 8,500 people arrived on Lampedusa on 199 boats between Monday and Wednesday last week, according to the UN’s International Organisation for
Migration, prompting European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen to travel there Sunday to announce an emergency action plan.

According to Darmanin, Paris told Italy it was “ready to help them return people to countries with which we have good diplomatic relations”, giving the
example of Ivory Coast and Senegal.

But France “will not welcome migrants” from the island, he said, speaking on French television on Tuesday evening.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has called on Italy’s EU partners to share more of the responsibility.

The recent arrivals on Lampedusa equal more than the whole population of the tiny Italian island.

The mass movement has stoked the immigration debate in France, where political parties in the country’s hung parliament are wrangling over a draft law governing new arrivals.

France is expected to face a call from Pope Francis for greater tolerance towards migrants later this week during a high-profile visit to Mediterranean city Marseille, where the pontiff will meet President Emmanuel Macron and celebrate mass before tens of thousands in a stadium.

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