Horrors of Migrant Kidnapping in Libya

 Illegal immigrants during their deportation to a detention center in Tripoli after being rescued from drowning (Getty Images)
Illegal immigrants during their deportation to a detention center in Tripoli after being rescued from drowning (Getty Images)
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Horrors of Migrant Kidnapping in Libya

 Illegal immigrants during their deportation to a detention center in Tripoli after being rescued from drowning (Getty Images)
Illegal immigrants during their deportation to a detention center in Tripoli after being rescued from drowning (Getty Images)

In the Egyptian town of Kafr Abou Negm, the ghost of death looms everywhere. News coming from Libya is coated with the stench of blood. Everyone wearily awaits any piece of information about the group of youth who secretly left the country in hopes of reaching Europe but instead drowned in Mediterranean waters.

A few days dominated by frustration and despair had passed with matters on the other side seemingly bleak and horrific.

Some of those who survived the drowning were being tortured with iron sticks and burned with fire in the “Bir Al-Ghanam” camp for irregular migrants, located southwest of the Libyan capital, Tripoli.

This tragedy is just a small-scale version of the dozens of crimes that migrants are subjected to, who infiltrate Libya through the vast desert, coming to it from different paths and capitals.

Some drown, some reach the “European Paradise,” others disappear inside prisons or narrow zones roofed with wood and metal sheets run by smuggling gangs. Those kidnapped await a mysterious fate, perhaps worse than death at sea.

All smuggling routes are controlled by a large mafia with local and regional reach. It operates inside the Libyan borders and from cities overlooking the Mediterranean coast, such as Sabratah.

Those coming from Egypt, Sudan and Somalia may meet with those who came through Chad and Niger. They are joined by more migrants coming from Ghana and the Ivory Coast.

All of them remain, since their departure from their homes, in the custody of the “broker”, who takes them on rugged paths until they settle in Libya, far from the watchful eyes of security authorities.

But if they fall into the grip of human-trafficking gangs, the matter may be completely different. They will be as good as dead as everything with these mafias has a price.

Even entering the toilet and drinking water might cost steeply.

Asharq Al-Awsat monitored some stories of bloody torture committed inside irregular immigration camps, beginning with beating migrants with whips and iron pipes, and ending with burning their bodies with fire to force their families to pay the ransom required for their release.

Some of these crimes are committed inside official detention facilities in Tripoli, including Ghout al-Shaal, while others are carried out in camps supervised by armed groups, or in secret warehouses.

Migrants pouring into Libya across its vast borders seems to fall in the interest of many segments.

Beneficiaries include militias and gangs professed for smuggling. Also, some tribes in the south of Libya are accused of exploiting the chaos that struck the North African country over the past decade to profit from the smuggling of people, weapons, drugs, and fuel.

But the interesting thing is that human trafficking has opened another evil door, the organ trade.

In Libya, African immigrants are being killed and having their organs carved out by specialized doctors. The organs are then sold for huge sums of money.

From time to time, security patrols find decomposing bodies of migrants in the Libyan desert.

Libya has witnessed a noticeable increase in the flow of migrants towards European shores, considering the relative calm the country is witnessing at present.

Nevertheless, the local coast guard forces and European ships working to rescue migrants are returning them to Libya.

The speech of most Libyan officials is devoid of any responsibility for the crimes of abuse of migrants, and in this regard, Brigadier-General Al-Mabrouk Abdel Hafeez said that his country “has become a victim, and was left alone in the face of this issue, which countries have been unable to address.”

The UNHCR says that nearly 5,000 refugees and asylum seekers are registered with it, of whom about 45% are men, 22 % are women, and 33% are children.

The International Organization for Migration also recorded the rescue of 969 migrants from drowning from December 19 to 25.



Lebanon's Public Schools Reopen amid War and Displacement

Children playing in a shelter center for displaced people in the town of Marwaniyah in South Lebanon (AP)
Children playing in a shelter center for displaced people in the town of Marwaniyah in South Lebanon (AP)
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Lebanon's Public Schools Reopen amid War and Displacement

Children playing in a shelter center for displaced people in the town of Marwaniyah in South Lebanon (AP)
Children playing in a shelter center for displaced people in the town of Marwaniyah in South Lebanon (AP)

In the quiet seaside town of Amchit, 45 minutes north of Beirut, public schools are finally in session again, alongside tens of thousands of internally displaced people who have made some of them a makeshift shelter.

As Israeli strikes on Lebanon escalated in September, hundreds of schools in Lebanon were either destroyed or closed due to damage or security concerns, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Of around 1,250 public schools in Lebanon, 505 schools have also been turned into temporary shelters for some of the 840,000 people internally displaced by the conflict, according to the Lebanese education ministry.

Last month, the ministry started a phased reopening, allowing 175,000 students - 38,000 of whom are displaced - to return to a learning environment that is still far from normal, Reuters reported.

At Amchit Secondary Public School, which now has 300 enrolled students and expects more as displaced families keep arriving, the once-familiar spaces have transformed to accommodate new realities.

Two-and-a-half months ago, the school was chosen as a shelter, school director Antoine Abdallah Zakhia said.

Today, laundry hangs from classroom windows, cars fill the playground that was once a bustling area, and hallways that used to echo with laughter now serve as resting areas for families seeking refuge.

Fadia Yahfoufi, a displaced woman living temporarily at the school, expressed gratitude mixed with longing.

"Of course, we wish to go back to our homes. No one feels comfortable except at home," she said.

Zeina Shukr, another displaced mother, voiced her concerns for her children's education.

"This year has been unfair. Some children are studying while others aren't. Either everyone studies, or the school year should be postponed," she said.

- EDUCATION WON'T STOP

OCHA said the phased plan to resume classes will enrol 175,000 students, including 38,000 displaced children, across 350 public schools not used as shelters.

"The educational process is one of the aspects of resistance to the aggression Lebanon is facing," Education Minister Abbas Halabi told Reuters

Halabi said the decision to resume the academic year was difficult as many displaced students and teachers were not psychologically prepared to return to school.

In an adjacent building at Amchit Secondary Public School, teachers and students are adjusting to a compressed three-day week, with seven class periods each day to maximize learning time.

Nour Kozhaya, a 16-year-old Amchit resident, remains optimistic. "Lebanon is at war, but education won't stop. We will continue to pursue our dreams," she said.

Teachers are adapting to the challenging conditions.

"Everyone is mentally exhausted ... after all this war is on all of us," Patrick Sakr, a 38-year-old physics teacher, said.

For Ahmad Ali Hajj Hassan, a displaced 17-year-old from the Bekaa region, the three-day school week presents a challenge, but not a deterrent.

"These are the conditions. We can study despite them," he said.