'EU Leaders: Stop Forcing Vulnerable Refugees In To Libya' is an online petition launched by the UK branch of Amnesty International to call on European leaders ''to find a better way to tackle the refugee crisis'' than by ''blocking people from leaving Libya by sea without alternative safe routes''.

Target of 25,000 signatures

 "Extortion, torture and rape awaits migrants being forced into Libya'', the human rights organization notes on the website of the initiative. Some 20,077 signatures had been reached by Wednesday afternoon of the 25,000 target. "European leaders are ignoring the pleas of a million people for sanctuary, and instead leaving them at grave risk in Libya, a currently unsafe place where migrants and refugees are subjected to the most horrific abuses imaginable,'' Amnesty noted. It added that "there is a global refugee crisis and wealthier nations, including the UK and others in Europe are refusing to share responsibility. In fact, by refusing to share responsibility they are causing further human suffering".

"To trap people in Libya is to be complicit in human rights violations"

Amnesty International has accused European leaders of funding and cooperating with ''Libyan authorities to enable them to intercept refugees and migrants and take them back to Libya, where many are detained and subjected to horrific abuses.'' The organization said that the North African country is not safe and that migrants ''are routinely subjected to killings, kidnappings for ransom, enslavement and forced labour, rape and other abuses. There is no asylum system in the country for those in need of protection". The current approach for European border management policies "is having disastrous consequences for women, men and children seeking sanctuary". Amnesty said that "to trap people in Libya is to be complicit in massive human rights violations", and the petition thus calls on European heads of state to ''open and expand safe and legal channels for refugees and migrants", "step up search and rescue capacities in the Central Mediterranean" and "end cooperation with Libyan authorities that leads to refugees and migrants being taken back to face torture, rape and other abuses in Libya, and focus instead on improving the human rights situation in the country".