Canada will welcome some 750 ex-slaves from Libya as refugees, Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen said Wednesday.

The United Nations and its aid partners, together with the interim Government of Libya, launched on Tuesday a humanitarian response plan (HRP), appealing for $202 million to bring urgent life-saving assistance to some 550,000 women, children and men affected by the ongoing humanitarian crisis, UN said in a statement.

The World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Monday against repeated attacks on hospitals and medical workers in Libya.

Oxfam and 43 other organisations have accused European Union governments of being complicit in the “tragedy” of migrants crossing from Libya to Italy, saying more than 5,300 people had died in the Mediterranean in the past two years.

Over the past two weeks, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) teams in Libya have observed a sharp increase in the number of people held in detention centers in Misrata and Khoms.

Most of the 48,000 former residents of the Libyan town of Tawergha, forcibly displaced for seven years, have not been able to return home, Human Rights Watch said today after visiting the town.

Human Rights Watch has urged Italy and the European Union to condition their support to Libya on tangible improvements in detention conditions for migrants, refugees and asylum seekers.

Despite a large number of IDPs having returned home to Derna in the last six months, approximately 1,200 families continue to be displaced in several areas of Libya, including 600 families within the city, a UNHCR overview reported yesterday.

UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner described the current situation in Libya as catastrophic, as a result of the political vacuum.

Libyan authorities repatriated last Thursday 12 Egyptian minors, whose fathers were killed in the fighting between Al-Bunyan Al-Marsous Operation forces and ISIS militants in Sirte.