Blinken Says US ‘Actively’ Working to Re-Establish Diplomatic Presence in Libya

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken testifies during a Senate Appropriations State-Foreign Operations Subcommittee hearing on Capitol Hill March 22, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Getty Images via AFP)
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken testifies during a Senate Appropriations State-Foreign Operations Subcommittee hearing on Capitol Hill March 22, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Getty Images via AFP)
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Blinken Says US ‘Actively’ Working to Re-Establish Diplomatic Presence in Libya

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken testifies during a Senate Appropriations State-Foreign Operations Subcommittee hearing on Capitol Hill March 22, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Getty Images via AFP)
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken testifies during a Senate Appropriations State-Foreign Operations Subcommittee hearing on Capitol Hill March 22, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Getty Images via AFP)

The United States is "actively" working on re-establishing a diplomatic presence in Libya, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday, although he declined to provide an exact time on when the US embassy can be reopened.

Libya has had little peace since the 2011 NATO-backed uprising that ousted Moammar al-Gaddafi and it split in 2014 between rival eastern and western factions, with the last major bout of conflict ending in 2020 with a ceasefire.

Washington shut its embassy in Tripoli in 2014 and moved to its mission to neighboring Tunis following intensifying violence between rival factions. US Special Envoy for Libya, Richard Norland, has operated out of the Tunisian capital, and took occasional trips into Libya.

A September 2012 assault on the US consulate in Benghazi, since closed, killed four Americans including the then US ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens.

"I can't give you a timetable other than to say that this is something we're very actively working on. I want to see us be able to re-establish an ongoing presence in Libya," Blinken said at a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing.

Blinken did not provide any details on the active work he referred to.

Assistant Secretary Barbara Leaf, top diplomat for the Middle East and North Africa, is currently touring the region, traveling to Jordan, Egypt, Libya, Lebanon, and Tunisia March 15-25.

In Libya, the State Department said, Leaf will meet with senior Libyan officials "to underscore US support for UN-facilitated efforts to promote consensus leading to elections in 2023."

"There's also an important moment where through the work of the UN envoy, there may be, and I emphasize maybe, a path forward to moving Libya in a better direction including getting election for legitimate government and our diplomats are deeply engaged in that," Blinken added.

The OPEC member country has been locked in political stalemate since late 2021 when a scheduled election was canceled because of disputes over the rules and the eastern-based parliament, the House of Representatives, withdrew support from the interim government.

Peacemaking efforts have focused on getting the House of Representatives and the High State Council to agree on a constitutional basis for elections and on voting rules.

The United Nations' special envoy for Libya last month moved to take charge of a stalled political process to enable elections that are seen as the path to resolving years of conflict.



UN: More than 1.3 Million Return to Homes in Sudan

Members of army walks near a destroyed military vehicle and bombed buildings, as Sudan's army retakes ground and some displaced residents return to ravaged capital in the state of Khartoum Sudan March 26, 2025. (Reuters)
Members of army walks near a destroyed military vehicle and bombed buildings, as Sudan's army retakes ground and some displaced residents return to ravaged capital in the state of Khartoum Sudan March 26, 2025. (Reuters)
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UN: More than 1.3 Million Return to Homes in Sudan

Members of army walks near a destroyed military vehicle and bombed buildings, as Sudan's army retakes ground and some displaced residents return to ravaged capital in the state of Khartoum Sudan March 26, 2025. (Reuters)
Members of army walks near a destroyed military vehicle and bombed buildings, as Sudan's army retakes ground and some displaced residents return to ravaged capital in the state of Khartoum Sudan March 26, 2025. (Reuters)

More than 1.3 million people who fled the fighting in Sudan have headed home, the United Nations said Friday, pleading for greater international aid to help returnees rebuild shattered lives.

Over a million internally displaced people (IDPs) have returned to their homes in recent months, UN agencies said.

A further 320,000 refugees have crossed back into Sudan this year, mainly from neighboring Egypt and South Sudan.

While fighting has subsided in the "pockets of relative safety" that people are beginning to return to, the situation remains highly precarious, the UN said.

Since April 2023, Sudan has been torn apart by a power struggle between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, commander of the rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. The fighting has killed tens of thousands.

The RSF lost control of the capital, Khartoum, in March and the regular army now controls Sudan's center, north and east.

In a joint statement, the UN's IOM migration agency, UNHCR refugee agency and UNDP development agency called for an urgent increase in financial support to pay for the recovery as people begin to return, with humanitarian operations "massively underfunded".

Sudan has 10 million IDPs, including 7.7 million forced from their homes by the current conflict, they said.

More than four million have sought refuge in neighboring countries.

- 'Living nightmare' -

Sudan is "the largest humanitarian catastrophe facing our world and also the least remembered", the IOM's regional director Othman Belbeisi, speaking from Port Sudan, told a media briefing in Geneva.

He said 71 percent of returns had been to Al-Jazira state, with eight percent to Khartoum.

Other returnees were mostly heading for Sennar state.

Both Al-Jazira and Sennar are located southeast of the capital.

"We expect 2.1 million to return to Khartoum by the end of this year but this will depend on many factors, especially the security situation and the ability to restore services," Belbeisi said.

With the RSF holding nearly all of the western Darfur region, Kordofan in the south has become the war's main battleground in recent weeks.

He said the "vicious, horrifying civil war continues to take lives with impunity", imploring the warring factions to put down their guns.

"The war has unleashed hell for millions and millions of ordinary people," he said.

"Sudan is a living nightmare. The violence needs to stop."

- 'Massive' UXO contamination -

After visiting Khartoum and the Egyptian border, Mamadou Dian Balde, the UNHCR's regional refugee coordinator for the Sudan crisis, said people were coming back to destroyed public infrastructure, making rebuilding their lives extremely challenging.

Those returning from Egypt were typically coming back "empty handed", he said, speaking from Nairobi.

Luca Renda, UNDP's resident representative in Sudan, warned of further cholera outbreaks in Khartoum if broken services were not restored.

"What we need is for the international community to support us," he said.

Renda said around 1,700 wells needed rehabilitating, while at least six Khartoum hospitals and at least 35 schools needed urgent repairs.

He also sounded the alarm on the "massive" amount of unexploded ordnance littering the city and the need for decontamination.

He said anti-personnel mines had also been found in at least five locations in Khartoum.

"It will take years to fully decontaminate the city," he said, speaking from Port Sudan.