ROME: Up to 10,000 people stranded in refugee camps and detention centres in Libya could be relocated to Europe in 2018, the Italian government said on Sunday.

The initiative would be part of an attempt by EU countries to address the deteriorating conditions in Libya, where thousands of people are held captive in inhumane conditions.

“In 2018, up to 10,000 refugees will be able to come to Europe without risk, through humanitarian corridors,” Italian Interior Minister Marco Minniti said in an interview with the newspaper La Repubblica.

The announcement comes after a group of 162 “vulnerable” people, from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia and Yemen, were evacuated from Libya and arrived by military plane in Rome on Friday.

The group included single mothers, unaccompanied children and handicapped people, and was the first time refugees and migrants had been relocated directly to Europe by the UN’s refugee agency (UNHCR).

About 400,000 migrants are in Libya, including roughly 36,000 children, the UN children’s agency Unicef and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said earlier this month.

In 2018, the IOM aims to repatriate 30,000 migrants to their home countries as part of a voluntary return programme.

Around 15,000 have been sent back this year.

“In accordance with the objectives of the IOM, 30,000 migrants without right to asylum will be able to be repatriated to their countries on a voluntary basis,” in 2018, Minniti said.

“With the help of the Libyan authorities, we have constructed a new management model on the other side of the Mediterranean.” Libya has long been a transit hub for migrants seeking a better life in Europe, but people smugglers have stepped up their lucrative business since the chaos following the 2011 revolution.

Last month, US television network CNN broadcast video footage appearing to show migrants being sold as slaves near the Libyan capital Tripoli, sparking international outrage.

International organisations are now able to “visit reception centres and improve their living conditions,” Minniti said, adding that the conditions were currently “unacceptable”.

Italy also needs to take “credible” measures to work with the Libyan coastguard to better control the “illegal” influx of migrants arriving by sea, he said.

Austria’s Chancellor

Meanwhile, Austria’s new Chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, called for an end to “failed” attempts to achieve a quota system for distributing asylum seekers around the European Union and urged new efforts to help refugees in their country of origin.

When he was foreign minister, Kurz, a conservative now governing in coalition with the far-right Freedom Party, was a strong critic of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to open Germany’s borders to more than a million fleeing migrants in 2015.

Since becoming Chancellor this week, he has aligned himself with central European neighbours like Hungary and the Czech Republic in opposing German-backed proposals to distribute asylum seekers around EU member states.

“Forcing states to take refugees doesn’t take Europe any further. The discussion makes no sense,” he told Germany’s Bild am Sonntag newspaper.

“Migrants who set off for Europe don’t want to go to Bulgaria or Hungary. They want to go to Germany, Austria or Sweden.”

Instead of doubling down on what he termed a “failed” policy, Kurz called for the EU to support, “perhaps militarily”, efforts to help migrants in their countries of origin or in neighbouring states.

“If that isn’t possible, then they should be helped in safe areas on their own continent,” he said. “The EU should support that, perhaps even organise it, and back it militarily.”

It was not clear from the interview extracts, published by the newspaper, what kind of military support he envisaged. But European leaders have on occasion suggested the EU contribute to peacekeeping operations to stabilise conflicts in Africa.

Agencies