know from other experiences that the longer people are displaced, the more protracted the situation, the less likely they are to go home. i mean, are there steps to be taken now, even given the situation it facilitates an eventual return from tunisia and elsewhere? >> i think there are steps. one issue, for example, that certainly will need to be considered is a question of restitution. this is going to be a complex process, always is with large scale displacements in which areas people lost their homes. in libya, it's all the more complicated because restitution claims they are intertwined with the practices of the gadhafi regime over decades. the gadhafi regime would use land conflicts, allocation of land resources as a way of playing different groups off of one another and this, of course results in very complex overlapping claims to the same properties. so in terms of thinking into the

future when we can hope to see this situation sorted out the restitution piece is going to be a big part of that and i think that there's work that can be done in terms of guard planning and for strategies to address that situation, and that is just one example, but there's a range of ways in which there can be effective forward planning. you know, it might seem idealistic at this moment because the security concerns are, obviously para mount, but that behooves us to do way we can with the situation we're in at the moment. >> i want to turn to the issue of hospital ty or comparison fatigue. you know, you step back even from the region you're just overwhelmed with humanitarian simultaneous megacrisis. that's everybody i know in the humanitarian sector is exhausted, running from one crisis to the other trying to raise money, and, you know, in this situation tunisia gets little international attention,

and here i'm struck by the fact that, you know there's been a generous reaction to refugees from a neighboring country for several years now and i mean, is there anything that the international community can do to recognize tremendous efforts you've done to address that comparison fatigue? >> yeah, i mean, this fatigue is the future all over the world, but it complicates it further by by -- change, having opportunity, pliemtemployment for everybody, and very high standards of living overnight. of course, what's happening in tunisia, it was very, very slow, and was very painful and the economic rewards are not there yet so there is economic

disillusionment, and there's a sense of political pride in what was achieved but to be honest, too, there was disill losement about the international community and our neighbors because tunisia thought they were generous above their means and that they made sacrifices but the security was not returned. when there were stabilities in these countries tunisia was not considered -- were not considered immediately to have some job opportunities and whatnot. the fact of general fatigue that's both because of the effort being made and the long time this effort is being p made, but also because there is a sense of this disulillusionment. in terms of what can be done, the international community could help. the libyan authorities,

whichever could, could also help. one of the issues is that tunisia authorities discussed before is that we have libyans living here, but they are benefitting from subsidies. we cannot limit subsidies to tunisia only, so they come from all countries but we ask in return maybe some kind of aide for all. to cover this kind of subsidy in the energy sector did not work but now with the in-fighting between governments and authorities in libya. the international community i mean, it's -- i mean, we always hear about these complaints italy, as well as a number of refugees and economic migrants, but as you have just mentioned i mean, it's -- it does not compare with what they do

without complaining, what gee knee that is doing. they receive 5,000 or something, and all the players, all the countries, everything is an issue. they are receiving millions. over other refugees, and in a sense, should be more international responsibility. sharings of costs sharing of sacrifices. that is not taking place. i hope that things will improve and be in the interest not of the med trainian because if you help with the countries maybe you help with the migrants. >> just to jump in on the question of compassion. there was a piece of interesting public opinion research done in march by a french and tunisia firm working in cooperation by the conrad foundation and this research found interestingly that when tunisia was asked to identify their top two ways in

which their government helps to respond to the libyan crisis 72% of respondents picked accepting refugees from libya as one of the two key ways to respond, so i think on the one hand this is a great testimony to how people continue to maintain a generous spirit despite this comparison fatigue and yet the population was split almost down the line on the question of whether libyan families should be allowed to integrate into tunisia society, and so there was, you know a lot more resistance to the notion of hospitalities going further than just keeping order open, which i think comes back to the question of hospitality fatigue and how hard it is to sustain these kinds of open policies in a longer term. >> all right. if i may -- >> yes please. >> regrettably, if you look at the world map today, the situation's only going to get worse. >> i know. >> and so i think that you know, the conflicts are proliferating. there are more conflicts, every

month there's a new emergency. we just declared moving away from this particular region. we just declared a level one emergency in rwanda because of the outflow of some 8,000 refugees. who would have thought? after having engaged in a major repatriation program to burr ruin di. only to suggest that would be --

>> you asked the same question, i would say i would respond the same way. we think that the idea of integration is not good, but it's not because of rejectionment i think it's rational kind of behavior because if you say we would like to have it, there's a recognition of failure, and i think it is more rational in the sense that we wish them success and they are welcome here, but we hope that they have -- will have positive solution in the near future. i certainly think this way if asked this question, rather than question of integration, but even then, before the revolution revolution, i mean, now we have, let's say we have 1 million refugees, but even before the

revolution, all time, we have always found 1 million libyans in tunisia coming for tourism medical care, so they are -- 10% number is always there. in better conditions, for good purposes and for good republican, but this case now it's just not a matter of choice. >> okay. one question more and then opened up for discussion. to you, shelly, are european doing enough in responding to the exodus from libya? most thought it was a wonderful initiative that ended and is something like that needed? >> not to put you on the spot. >> that's why i'm -- perceived by europe to be a factor, and without too much controversy it's clear now in the year that followed, the numbers increased, the numbers have increased on

the high sea, and so he was a good initiative by italy, and it should have benefitted for more support from europe generally, but that's that. it is what it is, one would say, and now there's an alternative approach focused more on border control, border management. yesterday, the european council decided to triple the investment in the operation, and which is i guess a -- you know, a fair reaction to what is been happening in the month of april especially with the last tragedy tragedy. most of you should know by now that 900 people or more died in one single accident -- 1200 people have died already on the sea -- on the high seas since

1276, since the beginning of this year. so it is not a problem that's going to go away, and now, certainly, with the seasonal -- with the season being as it is there will be more boat traffic. it is said that germany and sweden in particular have been remarkably generous in their approach, in particular for syria refugees coming to sweden and to germany as asylum seekers directly or through programs of resettlement or humanitarian admissions. we've been calling for a more generous approach using flexible visa family reunification, settlement, anything that would allow for more access, legal, safe secure predictable access

by syria refugees in particular, to european states on a more generalized and equitable basis, and that, unfortunately, did not come out of the european council decision yesterday although there is more -- there's movement in that direction, but no firm decision in that respect. there's still for very good reason, focus on trafficking and smuggling and that's important in and of itself because it represents risks for the my grants and refugees, but it does not provide a safe alternative to those people who were forced to flee to find security and safety. >> okay, thanks. opening it up now for questions and maybe take several as a time. if you could introduce yourself. we'll start over here please.

>> i agree with you that conflict is the main problem here, not just regular old economic derivation but if you looked at the fact that most tunisias work in the informal economic sector and pushed into work now in the informal sector, that this is informal flows of labor across the med you know, large numbers of these flows come from west africa, look at the numbers, we have a lot of informal activity here. the question for you is when the u.n. looks at livelihoods and crisis and how to deal with refugees how do they deal with the slow economic sector piece and constructing economies that will work and then for a quicker question. >> you alluded to the high figures of 1.5, and egyptians

say they have more libyans, and you aptly pointed out it's linked to those tied to the regime, but my question for you is what precedent is there what models are there for external reconciliation reconciliation? there are not libyans going back until they feel there's a safety in going back so how do you feel with international dialogue with an exile population that fears to return? it's like the inside, but what are the models for that? they will not come back until it's safe. >> let's take a couple more. if you could stand up, please, that helps people to hear better. this gentleman right here. >> thank you. michaelyichael boyce from refugee

international. from the idp response, we see in other settings where idp populations are less than accessible like somalia or syria, that humanitarian o organizations use remote control mechanisms, from another country and using particularly local actors to help a society, local ngos to distribute aide within the country. of course, that's not a perfect solution especially with ensuring proper protection for idps, but talk about the extent to which this is already being used or considered for the libyan context. >> again taking the gentleman in the very back there. >> independent consultant on hue map tearian issues. comment and question. first, someone who points to flaws, it's only fair to give unacr a lot of credit for the reporting that you have done.

you star in the annual report over the last several years. unhdr consistently reported on the number of deaths at sea of people trying to flee the horn of africa, northern africa to europe and other parts of the middle east. and on an annual basis the estimates have been in 2,000 or 3,000 parrish at sea. this is not now. the only thing new in the latest incident last week is that they were all on one ship. if they had been on four ships, died at 200 a piece it was not in the media, and we would not hear about it. this is not knew new, and it's been in reporting for several years. which leads me to my question, primarily to shelly but also if the other panelists have views on this on the migration and asylum speaking, fleeing by boat, in libya, does unahdr have

any leverage to influence the most dangerous and abusive practices of the traffickers? have the partners had any success in raising awareness among the asylum seekers and migrants before they depart libya about safer alternatives to reach their destination? thank you. >> we have complex questions here. invite anybody to jump in and answer. the question on the relationship of informal migrants with asylum seekers, reconciliation, unhcr, remote management, those who work inside libya and do they have influence with the trafficking element inside the

country? who would like to begin? >> maybe i should give some of it a did. so it's not so much in the country of origin, so to speak, that we would engage i mean we are directly but, certainly, in the countries of asylum, we're trying to get more involved and the buzz word, official word is resilience so for example, in context of the syria refugee response for the first time, and in a very collaborative way, hopefully it will be effective in terms of generating new resources. we've talk not only about responding to the refugee piece of our work in the country's of asylum but also resilience for

the host community and putting in place certainly activities through undp through other development oriented organizations to respond to the impact of large numbers of refugees on the services in the host countries, and livelihoods and helping refugees and people in the host community to keep up income generation. what we're already seeing very quickly, though, and this gets back to the earlier point that i made is that these are inadequate responses because of just the availability of funds, even if we begin to tap into the development pool of funding, inadequate responses to the kinds of issues that were mentioned with respect to tunisia, lebanon where you have structural challenges, in a big way, that impact our national security. in the short or medium term and in these areas, what we're going

for is important, it's essential, but it's insufficient. i think in terms of really keeping asylum space preserved and also keeping countries that do provide asylum secure. and so that's i think the first piece. the second, very quickly mentioning, we never denied that the movement by sea are mixed whether it's in the caribbean or the red sea or in the east pacific or, for that matter, in the mediterranean. there need to be mechanisms, which lack in all four examples for identifying people who are, indeed, in need of international protection and dealing with that according to international and national law on the one hand, and those who are migrant addressing their concerns, and,

however, that's done by iom and by the host countries and if it's according to the law then returning them safely to their point of departure or country of origin. those mechanisms are just not in place anywhere, frankly, in the systematic coherence and predictable way. so that's why the high commissioner took the initiative last december to have a dialogue, an international dialogue on protection at sea, which was pressing, which was well-timed in order to begin to have all states think about well, what are mechanisms that need to be introduced in order to provide those protections on the one hand and protect state interests on the other? not that they are mutually exclusive. and very quick reply on the remote management for idps. it's a very modest -- there's an indication more to say on this, but as i said, we have our

international presence out of tunis. we have national staff in tripoli and benghazi. we work with ngos, both national and international, to do what we can. the program is under funded. access is very limited. and so there's no pretense that what we're doing is anything on the order of the cross line operations, or for that matter, the cross border operations as well in syrian context or other idp emergency situations, and with respect to, jeff thank you very much for your observation. in fact, we have always, together with iom spoken about that to the extent we count them. we get the information from coast guards so they are not you know our numbers, but we publish them because they are part of the movements of people of concern or potentially of concern, and i misquoted the number of deaths on the

mediterranean. since january of 1776 -- so that's the number i should have more easily remembered. 1296 in april, but the numbers are also not as precise as we pretend. several dozens in the caribbean already this year that we get from the u.s. coast guard from turks coast guard as well. captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2008 captioning performed by vitac