Ranking Member on Foreign Affairs Committee of Parliament, Isaac Osei has cautioned that bringing back displaced Ghanaians from Libya would be very difficult for the government.
Ghana has no mission in Tripoli currently, because the Mission and its vehicles came under attack and had since been relocated to Malta recently.
“So, first, it’s difficult to gather the many Ghanaians who live in Libya in one place to be able to move them by whatever transport is available,” he noted.
Speaking on Joy News Thursday evening, Mr. Osei added: “I think it’s going to be very difficult for a group of Ghanaians to walk themselves out of Tripoli; they will get killed. The situation is very volatile because black people are being lynched in Libya as we speak” and something urgently ought to be done.
The Ghana government is making frantic efforts to get scores of Ghanaians living in Libya back home.
A similar situation had occurred recently and the government spent close to $1.5 million in facilitating their return home.
Mr. Osei continued that “Libya’s institutions at the moment simply don’t work; it’s become a field’s day so nobody can really get protection. Even our Ambassador didn’t have that protection when he was shot at.”
However, in order to move the people to a safer location, the MP suggested that the only option was to work with another friendly country, which could secure safe passage for the Ghanaians to go to the border with Algeria or Egypt.
“We have to work with other countries which probably have their presence in Tripoli and it’s not just Tripoli – it’s also places like Benghazi where many Ghanaians were reported killed.”
In 2008, eight Ghanaian construction workers were arrested for allegedly killing their employer.
Mr. Osei argued: “this was not true but they were sentenced to death. In 2011, anybody who was black or dark skinned was tagged a mercenary and could be killed.”
He concurred with Foreign Affairs Minister, Hannah Tetteh’s warning, which indicated that anyone who went back to that country after the situation was resolved, did so at his or her own risk.
He also advised potential travellers to Libya to “stay here and make the best out of our difficult situation in Ghana at the moment.”
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