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By Callum Paton.
Tripoli, 24 April 2014:
The government yesterday approved LD 50 million in humanitarian aid to help Libyans in exile in . . .[restrict]Egypt and Tunisia, in a bid to promote reconciliation. Most of those affected were supporters of the former regime.
The Prime Minister’s spokesman, Ahmed Lamin, told the Libya Herald that the aid programme had been adopted by the cabinet following the suggestion of the Abdullah Al-Thinni. The fund is to be provided by the Ministries of Social and Foreign Affairs.
He said many of those who supported the former regime and “continued to wave their flag during the revolution” had fled the country. “They are now struggling to survive in Tunisia and Egypt,” Lamin said.
He said the programme had partly been unveiled to help ease the suffering of Libyans abroad during Ramadan but that the aid was important to ensuring these individuals were not recruited by organisations which sought to destalise the country. He added that the money would alleviate child labour to which many Libyan families had resorted in exile.
As a part of the initiative, Al-Thinni would appoint a committee to further investigate the conditions of Libyans living in Tunisia and Egypt, Lamin said. He put the figure between 70,000 to 80,000.
Other estimates put it at ten times those figures. [/restrict]
