“Now it is time to close down the route from Libya to Italy,” Tusk said after talks in Brussels with Libyan Premier Fayez Al Serraj and earlier with Italy’s Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni. “The EU has shown it is able to close the irregular migration routes, as it has done in the eastern Mediterranean,” Tusk stated. Many thousands of people have died in recent years trying to reach the EU from Libya by boat. Serraj, who heads Libya’s UN-backed unity government, said the EU had so far earmarked insufficient resources for his country. The EU has not given an overall figure for its aid to Libya but Serraj called it “a small amount”.

Source: Libya Today February 02, 2017 17:22 UTC