A CNN report released this week reveals that migrants are being sold in several Libyan cities by the traffickers who were supposed to bring them to Europe.
A CNN report released this week reveals that migrants are being sold in several Libyan cities by the traffickers who were supposed to bring them to Europe.
Coming from sub-Saharan African countries, they are forced to stay in closed places, without water or food worthy of the name until they are sold. One of these migrants, Victory, from Nigeria, told CNN that he had “spent all his savings” trying to reach Europe and ended up being sold into slavery, allegedly because he hadn't paid enough for the final part of the journey. Victory, who is awaiting repatriation in a detention center in Tripoli, was freed after his family paid a ransom. When he was bought, he was worth precisely 400 dollars.
Many are forced to ask their families for money to avoid slavery. According to the International Organization for Migration, the Sahara desert has overtaken the Mediterranean as the main cause of death.
They manage to reach European territory, in the best of cases; or they are captured, taken to a detention center and repatriated. Or they end up drowning in the waters of the Mediterranean - and this tragic end is now joined by the inhumanity of ending their days as slaves in Libyan territory, sold at auction for the equivalent of 400 dollars (340 euros).
A CNN report published yesterday reveals that migrants are being sold in several Libyan cities by the traffickers who were supposed to bring them to Europe. Coming from sub-Saharan African countries, they are forced to stay in closed places, without water or food worthy of the name until they are sold. One of these migrants, Victory, from Nigeria, told CNN that he had “spent all his savings” trying to get to Europe and ended up being sold into slavery, allegedly because he hadn't paid enough for the final part of the journey. Victory, who is awaiting repatriation in a detention center in Tripoli, was freed after his family paid a ransom. When he was bought, he was worth precisely 400 dollars.
CNN's investigation draws attention to a reality that has existed in Libya since the end of Muammar Gaddafi's dictatorship in 2011. A reality that has taken on a greater dimension since the country became, in 2016, the main platform for migrants and refugees trying to reach Europe. And the political crisis, clashes between factions and the disintegration of the state apparatus have facilitated this.
Last April, a report by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) described situations identical to Victory's, with “people being sold in open-air markets”. A report published at the time by Newsweek magazine collected testimonies - from men and women - of African migrants and the situations of cruelty, violence and abuse to which these people had been subjected by traffickers. And also by members of the Libyan Maritime Guard and agents of the country's detention centers. With regard to the latter, a report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, released yesterday reveals that ”thousands of men, women and children are emaciated, traumatized, with no room to move, locked in hangars and without any access to basic necessities“.
There are now 20,000 people in detention centers in Tripoli.
Sold twice
The Newsweek report takes the testimony of a young adult from Guinea who said he had been “sold twice”. The first time, “I was sold to an Arab, who forced me to work for him and call my family to ask for money to pay a ransom”. When that didn't happen, the first Arab sold the Guinean to “another Arab”, for whom he also had to work, only to be freed when his family paid the ransom.
The same report says that women are also sold at slave auctions and that their price is higher than that of men. In addition to being forced into slave labor, they are also victims of sexual abuse.
For its part, the IOM report released in April reveals that traffickers, in the initial phase of the journey, during the crossing of the Sahara desert, usually negotiate with armed groups who kidnap the migrants and then demand ransoms, to be paid by transfer via Western Union or Money Gram. When the ransoms are not paid, the migrants are sold into slavery or left without food.
Another IOM report from last week indicates that the highest number of migrant deaths has occurred on the Sahara crossing, estimating that it is now double the number of people who have already lost their lives this year on the Mediterranean crossing: 2,750.C/Diário de Noticias
Source: www.asemana.publ.cv