Thank you to the NGO Migration Committee for the invitation to join this esteemed panel. Thank you also to UNITAR, UNFPA, IOM, and the MacArthur Foundation for choosing to commemorate International Migrants Day by focusing on the human security of migrants in conflict situations as part of your 2011 Migration and Development Series. You could not have selected a more timely, compelling, and relevant topic, specifically in the context of this year’s Libya conflict, where the exodus was characterized by – in proportions never before seen - a strikingly complex mixed migrant flow of humanity, involving people with various profiles and needs.

Forced migration is often triggered by armed conflict, but by and large it is the nationals of the war-torn state who flee to safety across borders, such as the exodus of Iraqis to Jordan and Turkey. However, in the context of Libya, it is estimated that over 350,000 of the 785,000 civilians who fled the conflict* were migrants, not Libyans! They included people from Mali, Bangladesh, Egypt, Somalia, Sudan, Tunisia, Eritrea, Philippines, and more than 30 other countries. The media called them “third country nationals”, people who had come to Libya primarily for work (legally or illegally), particularly in the oil and construction industries, and were now fleeing to safety in Tunisia and Egypt.

The fact that these migrants represented fully 45% of the exodus vividly demonstrated in real time the extent to which migration – and by extension, the globalization phenomenon - was defining (or redefining) human security needs in time of conflict. The numbers were so huge and the flight so swiftly concentrated that the world had to take notice of this new configuration, new paradigm. It required all of us in the international community, many of whom are represented here today, to do some fast strategizing, re-think some of our assumptions, initiate some new kinds of emergency responses, and work to assure protection and security for all in flight, regardless of legal status or nationality.

*Statistical Report, IOM, 13 December 2011

To read this statement in its entirety, please see the pdf below.

ST Bloom: Panel on Migrants in Crisis Situations. Human Security Concerns (116.35 KB)