The eastern region of Libya, under the control of the Libyan National Army (LNA) led by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, has witnessed a sharp decline in the number of illegal migrants departing for Europe, according to the Italian news agency Nova.
While the start of 2023 surprisingly saw more migrants leaving from eastern Libya than the western coast, only 50 migrants have departed from the Cyrenaica region this year. This is in stark contrast to the thousands who have set off from areas under the Tripol-based government led by Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh.
In the same context, a statement by the Tripoli ministry explains that the Law Enforcement Department of the General Administration of Security Operations, in charge of protecting vital infrastructure and urban access points, has been instructed to deploy to the Tunisian border to support the Directorate of Security and the police forces “in action against smuggling, security violations and other negative phenomena”.
