CAIRO (Reuters) - The European Union signed an agreement with Egypt on Sunday for the first phase of an 80 million-euro border management programme, a statement from the EU delegation in Cairo said, at a time when Egyptian migration to Europe has been rising. Since late 2016, irregular migration to Europe from the Egypt's northern coast has slowed sharply. However, migration of Egyptians across Egypt's long desert border with Libya and from Libya's Mediterranean coast to Europe has been on the rise, diplomats say. In 2021 more than 26,500 Egyptians were stopped at the Libyan border, according to the EU Commission document. The EU Commission document says that to date, Egypt has addressed irregular migration "predominantly from a security perspective, sometimes at the expense of other dimensions of migration management, including the rights based protection migrants, refugees and asylum seekers".

Source: Libya Today October 30, 2022 18:15 UTC