The Special Rapporteur on Refugees, Asylum Seekers, Internally Displaced Persons and Migrants in Africa is following with concern the situation of African migrants in Lebanon, particularly domestic workers, who have been stranded in the country since the start of the Israeli air attacks and ground invasion last September, and which continues to this day.
According to reports received by the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights (African Commission), these migrants, mainly domestic workers from Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan and Sierra Leone, found themselves stranded because they had been abandoned by their employers, often without their identity documents or passports, and unable to be evacuated.
Many of them have had to move several times since the escalation began, and are waiting for support and assistance to return to their countries of origin.
For their survival, these migrant workers depend mainly on aid from humanitarian actors, in particular the IOM and the UNHCR, as well as from civil society organisations.
The Special Rapporteur calls on African States with their nationals in Lebanon, as migrant workers, to provide them with the necessary protection, and to take all measures to organise their repatriation in dignity, taking into account the urgency of the situation.
It also wishes to remind African States that provide labour abroad of the need to put in place legal frameworks to regulate labour migration before departure and after arrival, including the conditions of employment, which must be decent, remedies and access to legal advice in the event of violations, in line with the objectives of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (2018), as well as the African Commission's African Guiding Principles on the Human Rights of All Migrants, Refugees and Asylum Seekers, adopted in 2023.
Banjul October 2024
