The United Nations (UN) said on Friday it is deeply concerned by violent protests outside its offices in Libya this week and blamed social \u200bmedia for fueling disinformation about the world body’s work in \u200cthe country.<\/p>\n
Hundreds of Libyan demonstrators blocked off the office of the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) in Tripoli on Thursday during a protest against migrants who travel to Libya in search of \u200bwork or passage to Europe.<\/p>\n
It was the largest of several recent \u200bdemonstrations against migrants, whom some Libyans blame for social and \u2060economic problems that have become more visible during 15 years of conflict \u200band political division in the North African country.<\/p>\n
“We are deeply concerned by \u200bthe violent protests that took place yesterday outside the UNHCR and UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) headquarters in Tripoli,” UN Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told a regular briefing at UN headquarters in New York.<\/p>\n
“The \u200bUN strongly condemns any attack or threats against personnel or premises,” he \u200bsaid, adding: “We are concerned by the spread of misinformation and disinformation regarding the work of \u200cthe \u2060UN\u00a0in\u00a0Libya.”
\nDujarric said countering disinformation in Libya was “extremely challenging” and called for co-operation from social media platforms to address the problem.
\nUNSMIL, said on Thursday there is no UN \u200bresettlement program in Libya \u200band that UNHCR \u2060works to help people fleeing war with solutions outside the country, including evacuation to third countries and voluntary \u200breturn when conditions allow.
\nSince the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation-backed uprising in 2011, Libya \u200bhas become \u2060a transit route for hundreds of thousands of migrants fleeing conflict and poverty, often in sub-Saharan Africa, with many risking dangerous journeys across the desert \u2060or the \u200bMediterranean.
\nThe oil-dependent Libyan economy is also a \u200bdraw for migrants seeking work, and many do menial jobs in sectors including cleaning and construction \u200bthat Libyans are reluctant to fill.<\/p>\n
–Reuters–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":36055,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[78,26],"class_list":["post-36379","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-featured","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Hundreds of Libyan demonstrators blocked off the office of the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) in Tripoli.","published_date":"","news_description":"Hundreds of Libyan demonstrators blocked off the office of the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) in Tripoli.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/36379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/36379\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36380,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/36379\/revisions\/36380"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=36379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}