SUDANESE DIPLOMAT ALLEGES LIBYAN OFFICIALS' COMPLICITY IN

C O N F I D E N T I A L TRIPOLI 001030 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/12/2017 TAGS: PREL KTIP SOCI PGOV LY SUBJECT: SUDANESE DIPLOMAT ALLEGES LIBYAN OFFICIALS' COMPLICITY IN HUMAN SMUGGLING CLASSIFIED BY: Chris Stevens, DCM, Embassy Tripoli, Department of State. REASON: 1.4 (b),(d) ¶1. (C) The long-serving Sudanese DCM in Tripoli, Isaac Kenti, told CDA in a recent meeting that Sudanese criminal networks freely operate migration smuggling rings from Libya to Europe with the complicity of some Libyan officials. According to Kenti, while the GOL provides border guards and police with free or subsidized apartments, cars, and food, the smugglers are able to provide the one thing the Libyan government does not -- cash. Laurence Hart, head of the International Organization for Migration's Tripoli office, confirmed separately that law enforcement and border officials are involved in facilitating illegal migration. ¶2. (C) Kenti bemoaned the fact that up to 80 percent of irregular migrants arrested in Europe after transiting from Libya claim Sudanese nationality to bolster their asylum applications. According to Kenti, only 20 percent of migrants smuggled or trafficked into Europe are actually Sudanese citizens. The rest claim Sudanese citizenship to decrease the chance that they will be repatriated. He estimated that there were currently about 500 Sudanese currently in detention in Malta after having made landfall there. ¶3. (C) Kenti said that 50 to 70 individuals from sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, who are smuggled by Sudanese criminal networks to Europe, drown each month attempting to cross the Mediterranean. Sudanese diplomats in Libya privately estimate that between 300,000 and 400,000 Sudanese are resident and working in Libya at any given time, although the number of Sudanese in Libya has reportedly decreased with the levying of new, punitive school-registration fees for non-Libyan children this academic year. MILAM