Many of Libya’s migrant detention centres remain places of terrible and systematic abuse, that may amount to crimes against humanity, top rights investigators said on Monday.
The heads of the two key UN agencies championing refugees and migrants have called for an end to their “arbitrary detention” across Libya, following an agreement on Tuesday by European Union countries to offer those fleeing across the Mediterranean a safe berth through a new distribution mechanism.
Friday’s main news stories include: Guterres welcomes Sudan power-sharing deal; six children are among 53 confirmed dead after Libya detention centre airstrikes; Monsoon rains wreak havoc in Rohingya camps; and Bachelet calls for “time and space” in Venezuela.
An airstrike on a detention centre in Tripoli that killed scores of migrants and refugees “deserves more than condemnation”, UN agencies said on Wednesday, as both the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the head of the UN mission in Libya (UNSMIL), insisted that it may amount to a war crime.
Thousands of migrants remain trapped by fighting in and around Tripoli, UN agency IOM has warned, more than a month after an assault on the Libyan capital began, led by self-styled Libyan National Army commander, Khalifa Haftar.
In an interview with Daniel Johnson from UN News, Safa Msehli, from the International Organization for Migration in Libya, explains how the agency helps those held in 11 official detention facilities.
Amid increasingly violent clashes between rival armed groups in Libya’s capital,Tripoli, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) has successfully airlifted 135 migrants and refugees to safety in Niger.
The Libyan authorities have “in principle” agreed to let the UN migration agency (IOM) take care of people rescued from the Mediterranean Sea, rather than put them in detention, the head of the organization said on Friday.
The development follows IOM Director General William Lacy Swing’s meeting with Libya’s Prime Minister, Fayez al-Sarraj.
The head of UN Migration Agency (IOM), William Lacy Swing, has urged Libya to stop detaining migrants who have been returned to the country’s shores after trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea to Europe.
“Terrible conditions” for migrants in Libya Detention centers