Libya’s inhumane treatment of asylum seekers – the evidence
Karl Stagno-Navarra
Refusing to be rescued by a Maltese patrol boat on the high seas – fearing detention and hoping to reach Italy as their gateway to Europe – proved to be a grave mistake for 75 Somali migrants who were turned back to Libya last week by order of the Italian government.
Men, women and children implored the Italian authorities for mercy as they were taken aboard a Guardia di Finanza patrol vessel and told by the officers that they will be immediately heading back to Tripoli.
Desperate calls made by satellite phones to relatives in Malta and Italy from aboard the Italian patrol craft that braved the strong winds and cut through the high waves while heading to the Gulf of Sirte led to nowhere, and the migrants resigned themselves to their uncertain fate back into the hands of the Libyan authorities.
In a report compiled by ‘Fortress Europe’ – a leading observatory on asylum issues – once arrived in Tripoli, the 75 migrants were immediately escorted to a detention centre and locked inside a cell in which they were left with no food and water, and without any access to UNHCR officials.
The migrants’ fate – including the women and children – remains unknown to this day, and Fortress Europe have substantiated their claims of preoccupation following the receipt of a series of shocking photographs – unrelated to the 75 migrants – sent from Libya via mobile phone.
The photographs made the rounds of the Somali press and reached Europe this week, showing the beatings and torture a group of Somali migrants received at the hands of Libyan security forces in Benghazi.
A total of 15 low resolution photographs show a group of men in a cell, bandaged and bleeding from the head, arms and legs.
Some have severe lacerations on their skin. Others have been stitched in an unprofessional manner, probably having undergone surgery without any anaesthetic.
Fortress Europe considers the photographs as “clear evidence” of the inhumane treatment migrants are submitted to in Libya.
The photographs also serve as an indictment for both the Maltese and the Italian governments, who are respectively favouring and implementing forced repatriations of asylum seekers to Libya.
The pictures were published by Somali website Shabelle, that denounced a “massacre” committed by the police in Benghazi. The headline triggered an immediate reaction from the Libyan ambassador in Mogadishu Ciise Rabiic Canshuur, who denied any wrongdoings by the Libyan police.
An eyewitness who spoke to ‘Fortress Europe’ under anonymity for security purposes revealed that at least 50 migrants, the majority of whom were Somalis and some Eritreans were brutally beaten by the Libyan police.
All were never sent to a hospital, and are still kept inside a detention centre just outside the city of Benghazi.
According to the witness, the events unfolded on 9 August, when a group of migrants tried to run for freedom and jump the Ganfuda detention centre gates.
Armed with batons and knives, the police hit out at the migrants indiscriminately. Six were killed on the spot, while a good number of them were seriously wounded.
Others were arrested and systematically tortured.
After that, at least ten others are reported to be “missing” as nobody ever heard anything else from them.
Ganfuda is situated just a couple of miles outside Benghazi, and almost 500 men, women and children are locked in this detention centre. Their only possible way out would be through corrupt means, some stating that it would cost an individual almost 1,000 US dollars to get out.
Those who remain locked inside are crammed into to a little space. They sleep on the floor, have no fresh water nor access to medicine or doctors. Many of the migrants are infected with scabies, hepatitis and other serious diseases.
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