According to the Migration Policy Center, prior to the 2011 war, "outward migration was not an issue for the Libyan population." This changed, following the lethal NATO war on Libya, which pushed the country straight into the status of failed states.
Between the start of the war on March 19 and June 8, 2011, 422,912 Libyans and 768,372 foreign nationals fled the country, according to the International Organization of Migration (IOM). Many of those refugees sought asylum in Europe. Salvini's virulent anti-refugee discourse is bereft of any reference to that shameful, self-indicting reality.
In fact, Salvini's own Lega party was a member of the Italian coalition which took part in NATO's war on Libya. Not only is Salvini refusing to acknowledge his country's role in fostering the current refugee crisis, but he is designating as an "enemy" humanitarian NGOs that are active in rescuing stranded refugees and migrants in the Mediterranean Sea.
According to the UN refugee agency (UNHRC), an estimated 2,275 people drowned while attempting to cross to Europe in 2018 alone. Thousands of precious lives, like those of Oscar and Valeria, would have been spared, had NATO not intervened on the pretext of wanting to save lives in Libya in 2011.
According to UNHRC, as of June 19, 2019, there are 70.8 million forcibly displaced people worldwide; of them, 41.3 million are internally displaced people, while 25.9 million are refugees who crossed international borders.
Yet, despite the massive influx of refugees, and the obvious logic between political meddling (as in El Salvador) and military intervention (as in Libya), no western government is yet to accept any moral, let alone legal, accountability for the massive human suffering underway.
Italy, France, Britain, and other NATO members who took part in bombing Libya in 2013 are guilty of fueling today's refugee crisis in the Mediterranean Sea. Similarly, the supposedly random "violence" and drug wars in El Salvador must be seen within the political context of misguided American interventionism. Were it not for such violent interventions, Oscar, Valeria and millions of innocent people would have still been alive today.
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