Macron urges military action against human traffickers

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French President Emmanuel Macron has called for the European Union (EU) and African Union (AU) to consider countering human trafficking in North Africa through coordinated police and military action.

Macron was speaking on the sidelines of the AU-EU Summit in Cote d’Ivoire in the wake of video footage published by CNN showing apparent slave auctions in Libya.

“Human trafficking is a criminal offence. It’s not for us just to denounce the problem, but to act, attacking collectively these networks of human traffickers because they operate from the Sahel all the way to Libya and they have connections which enable them to operate all the way to the Mediterranean,” Macron told FRANCE 24.

Migrant ‘evacuations’

The AU-EU Summit which began on Wednesday, has been dominated by discussions on human trafficking, and several African leaders have called for the international community to do more to blunt the practice.

Young African men attempting to travel to Europe are often sold for labor in Libya, where many migrants are detained, tortured, and even killed, according to the UN International Organisation for Migration (IOM).

European Council head Donald Tusk, European Commission head Jean-Claude Juncker, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Morroco's King Mohammed VI attend the opening ceremony of the Africa-EU Summit in Cote d'Ivoire, November 29, 2017. /Reuters Photo

African Union, European Union and United Nations officials on Wednesday offered increased support for the IOM "to help with the return of the Africans who want it to their home countries," Macron told reporters after an emergency meeting at the summit.

The French president said a deal was also struck to share police and intelligence services to "dismantle the networks and their financing and detain traffickers."

European Council President Donald Tusk told the summit there had been "horrifying" treatment of young Africans, but warned against starting "a blame game" and called for cooperation to fight criminals.

‘Marshall Plan with Africa’

The EU is increasingly focused on a strategy to boost the African economy as a way to curb the influx of migrants into Europe – more than 1.5 million migrants from Africa and the Middle East are thought to have arrived in Europe over the past two years.

Germany has proposed a “Marshall Plan with Africa," and the EU has set up multi-billion-euro fund to boost the continent’s development and deepened counter-terrorism cooperation.

Africa is likely to have 2.4 billion people by 2050, more than double the current population. EU and African leaders have warned that without fast-tracked development, millions could flee to Europe or turn to radical Islamist groups.

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