French president Emmanuel Macron told FRANCE 24 on Wednesday that he would be proposing military action against human traffickers to combat migrant slave trading. Macron has also called for an "urgent operation" to evacuate victims from Libya, reports FRANCE 24.
In an exclusive interview with FRANCE 24 on the sidelines of the 2017 African Union-European Union (AU-EU) summit in Ivory Coast, Macron said he would be having further meetings with EU and AU representatives to propose taking military action against traffickers.
“Human trafficking is a criminal offence," Macron said. "It’s not enough for us just to denounce the problem but we must act collectively in attacking these human trafficking networks, [which] operate from the Sahel all the way to Libya and have connections that enable them to reach all the way across the Mediterranean."
But Macron stressed that when he calls for police and military action he did not mean “waging war” in Libya, a country that has suffered from a brutal civil war since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi.
Later on Wednesday, Macron told reporters that Libya had agreed to allow migrants facing abuse in detention camps to be evacuated within the coming days or weeks.
The leaders of Libya, France, Germany, Chad, Niger and other countries "decided on an extremely urgent operation to evacuate from Libya those who want to be", Macron told reporters after multiparty talks on the sidelines of the summit.
Slavery and human trafficking has dominated the AU-EU summit, which came just two weeks after US network CNN aired footage of African migrants being sold as slaves in Libya.
The video sparked a massive outcry, with several African leaders calling on the international community to take urgent measures to put an end to the practice.