by Marwa YahyaCAIRO, March 4 (Xinhua) -- Coming under heavy pressure after allowing a million refugees into Germany, chancellor Angela Merkel's two-day trip to North African countries were mainly aimed to curb illegal migration to Europe, political analysts said. Merkel's talks in Egypt and Tunisia, two countries neighboring Libya, also covered ways to respond to years of instability exploited by smugglers in Libya. Egypt and Tunisia are important centers for stepping up border control with Libya, the political expert Fahmy noted. Merkel also said the German government would provide Tunisia with 250 million euros (265 million U.S. dollars) in aid for development projects. Curbing the illegal migration requires deterrent measures and better means for securing the borders as well as intelligence cooperation to unveil the organizations that fund and run the migration operations, he explained.

Source: The North Africa Journal March 04, 2017 15:19 UTC