Amnesty International has accused the European governments, particularly Italy, of involvement in the torture and abuse of illegal migrants in Libya.
In a new report titled “Libya’s dark web of collusion,” the human rights group said “the European governments are actively supporting a sophisticated system of abuse and exploitation of refugees and migrants by the Libyan Coast Guard, detention authorities and smugglers in order to prevent people from crossing the Mediterranean.”
“European governments are knowingly complicit in the torture and abuse of tens of thousands of refugees and migrants detained by Libyan immigration authorities in appalling conditions in Libya”, the report remarks.
The report said the European governments are fully aware of the “systematic” abuses of migrants and are actively supporting the Libyan authorities in stopping sea crossings and containing people in Libya.
Amnesty International also expressed refusal to the cooperation between Libya and the European governments to intercept illegal immigrants at sea, warning about the consequences of such cooperation on the migrants in Libya.
“They (European governments) have committed to providing technical support and assistance to the Libyan Department for Combatting Illegal Migration (DCIM), which runs the detention centres where refugees and migrants are arbitrarily and indefinitely held and routinely exposed to serious human rights violations including torture.” The report said, referring to the assistance given by the EU governments to the Libyan Coast Guard to intercept people at sea, by providing them with training, equipment, including boats, and technical and other assistance.
Amnesty also declared that up to 20,000 migrants currently remain contained in overcrowded, unsanitary detention centres across Libya.
“The migrants are subject to arbitrary detention, torture, forced labour, extortion, and unlawful killings, at the hands of the authorities, traffickers, armed groups and militias alike.” Amnesty International claimed.
It also accused Libyan Coast Guard officials of collaborating with smuggling networks, estimating that 19,452 migrants have been intercepted by the Libyan Coast Guard in 2017.
Tens of thousands of immigrants from several Arab and African countries enter Libya illegally every year in an attempt to cross into Europe. The migrants penetrate into Libya using rugged desert routes and pay human traffickers thousands of dinars to help them reach the coastal cities where they pay human smugglers other thousands to put them on boats for Europe journey.
Many of them are caught by Libyan Coast Guard in mid-journey and sent back to detention centres where they stay until their governments finish their documents for the voluntary return program to their countries of origin.
