Development aid cuts are boost for human traffickers, UNHCR warns
The United States and several EU member states are cutting back on international aid. As a result, traffickers see opportunities, UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said in an interview with Belga on Wednesday.
The United States has slashed most of its development aid budget, virtually eliminating the US Agency for International Development (USAID). But EU member states are also cutting back, including Belgium. Prime minister Bart De Wever's government has cut the country's development cooperation budget by 25 per cent.
The reduction means more people will migrate to Libya to make the life-threatening crossing of the Mediterranean to Europe, Grandi says. "Human traffickers - the best businessmen in the world - understand that with less aid, more clients will go to Libya."
More Sudanese refugees
Grandi has just returned from Tiné, on the border between Chad and Sudan, where he assessed the situation of Sudanese refugees alongside the EU Commissioner for Crisis Management, Hadja Lahbib.
Chad is home to 1.3 million Sudanese refugees. The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, has already had to reduce its activities in the country by 20 per cent due to the cuts in aid. As a result, UNHCR is "already seeing a small increase in Sudanese refugees" in Libya, Grandi said.
EU countries cutting back on development aid should be more aware of the consequences in terms of migration, he said. "I am afraid that reducing support to UNHCR, the World Food Programme and UNICEF will encourage people to follow smugglers."
© PHOTO SERGEI SUPINSKY / AFP
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