UN moves 149 refugees, asylum seekers from Tripoli to Rome

The United Nations says 149 refugees and asylum seekers have been safely evacuated from the Libyan capital to Rome.

U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said the evacuees — nearly half of them children — were moved Thursday from a U.N. refugee agency facility in Tripoli “after surviving for months in dire conditions in detention centres” in the capital.

He said they are from Eritrea, Somalia, Sudan and Ethiopia, “and many need medical treatment and are malnourished.”

Haq said Thursday’s evacuation follows the evacuation of 62 refugees from Tripoli to the U.N. refugee agency’s emergency transit centre in Timisoara, Romania. He said the evacuees, from Syria, Sudan and Somalia, were travelling onward to Norway.

Haq said detainees are arriving in Libya at a faster pace than people are departing.