TRIPOLI, July 9 (Xinhua) -- President of the European Parliament Antonio Tajani on Monday called for identification of senior human traffickers in order to pursue them internationally.
Tajani made his remarks following a meeting with the Libyan UN-backed Prime Minister Fayez Serraj in the Libyan capital Tripoli, where the two officials discussed cooperation and efforts against illegal immigration.
"I have agreed with Serraj that Libya is a victim of illegal immigration," Tajani told a press conference following the meeting. "I stressed the importance of the work to help Libya monitor its southern borders and work more to secure its borders with neighboring countries."
Due to the state of insecurity and chaos in the country following the 2011 uprising that toppled former leader Gaddafi's regime, Libya became a preferred point of departure for illegal immigrants to cross towards European shores.
"A black list must be set up to identify top human traffickers, so that police all over the world can hunt them down," Tajani said.
Meanwhile, he stressed Europe's support for the upcoming elections in Libya by "establishing a technical European-Libyan cooperation and sending a European delegation to monitor the upcoming elections to assure their integrity."
France hosted in May a meeting on Libya with the participation of different Libyan parties to end the political crisis in the country.
The parties agreed to hold and commit themselves to "credible" presidential and parliamentary elections slated for Dec. 10.
Tajani also said that the European Union intends to send medical experts to Libya to provide urgent medical assistance for Libyan children and transfer difficult cases to Europe for treatment.
Despite signing a UN-sponsored peace agreement by the Libyan political parties in 2015, Libya remains politically divided between eastern and western governments, both competing for legitimacy.
