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.



Things to Know About the UN Special Rapporteur Sanctioned by the US

Francesca Albanese, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, talks to the media during a press conference at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, July 11, 2023. (Salvatore Di Nolfi/Keystone via AP, File)
Francesca Albanese, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, talks to the media during a press conference at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, July 11, 2023. (Salvatore Di Nolfi/Keystone via AP, File)
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Things to Know About the UN Special Rapporteur Sanctioned by the US

Francesca Albanese, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, talks to the media during a press conference at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, July 11, 2023. (Salvatore Di Nolfi/Keystone via AP, File)
Francesca Albanese, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, talks to the media during a press conference at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, July 11, 2023. (Salvatore Di Nolfi/Keystone via AP, File)

A UN special rapporteur was sanctioned by the United States over her work as an independent investigator scrutinizing human rights abuses in the Palestinian territories, a high-profile role in a network of experts appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council.

Francesca Albanese is among the experts chosen by the 47-member council in Geneva. They report to the body as a means of monitoring human rights records in various countries and the global observance of specific rights.

Special rapporteurs don't represent the UN and have no formal authority. Still, their reports can step up pressure on countries, while their findings inform prosecutors at the International Criminal Court and other venues working on transnational justice cases.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement announcing sanctions against Albanese on Wednesday that she “has spewed unabashed antisemitism, expressed support for terrorism, and open contempt for the United States, Israel and the West.”

Albanese said Thursday that she believed the sanctions were “calculated to weaken my mission.” She said at a news conference in Slovenia that “I’ll continue to do what I have to do.”

She questioned why she had been sanctioned — “for having exposed a genocide? For having denounced the system? They never challenged me on the facts.”

The UN high commissioner for human rights, Volker Türk, called for a “prompt reversal” of the US sanctions. He added that “even in face of fierce disagreement, UN member states should engage substantively and constructively, rather than resort to punitive measures.”

Prominent expert

Albanese, an Italian human rights lawyer, has developed an unusually high profile as the special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza, a post she has held since May 2022.

Last week, she named several large US companies among those aiding Israel as it fights a war with Hamas in Gaza, saying her report “shows why Israel’s genocide continues: because it is lucrative for many.”

Israel has long had a rocky relationship with the Human Rights Council, Albanese and previous rapporteurs, accusing them of bias. It has refused to cooperate with a special “Commission of Inquiry” established following a 2021 conflict with Hamas.

Albanese has been vocal about what she describes as a genocide by Israel against Palestinians in Gaza. Israel and the US, which provides military support to its close ally, have strongly denied the accusation.

‘Nothing justifies what Israel is doing’

In recent weeks, Albanese issued a series of letters urging other countries to pressure Israel, including through sanctions, to end its deadly bombardment of the Gaza Strip. She also has been a strong supporter of arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court against Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for allegations of war crimes.

Albanese said at a news conference last year that she has “always been attacked since the very beginning of my mandate,” adding that criticism wouldn't force her to step down.

“It just infuriates me, it pisses me off, of course it does, but then it creates even more pressure not to step back,” she said. “Human rights work is first and foremost amplifying the voice of people who are not heard.”

She added that “of course, one condemned Hamas — how not to condemn Hamas? But at the same time, nothing justifies what Israel is doing.”

Albanese became an affiliate scholar at the Institute for the Study of International Migration at Georgetown University in 2015, and has taught and lectured in recent years at various universities in Europe and the Middle East. She also has written publications and opinions on Palestinian issues.

Albanese worked between 2003 and 2013 with arms of the UN, including the legal affairs department of the UN Palestinian aid agency, UNRWA, and the UN human rights office, according to her biography on the Georgetown website.

She was in Washington between 2013 and 2015 and worked for an American nongovernmental organization, Project Concern International, as an adviser on protection issues during an Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

Member of a small group

Albanese is one of 14 current council-appointed experts on specific countries and territories.

Special rapporteurs, who document rights violations and abuses, usually have renewable mandates of one year and generally work without the support of the country under investigation. There are rapporteurs for Afghanistan, Belarus, Burundi, Cambodia, North Korea, Eritrea, Iran, Myanmar, Russia and Syria.

There also are three country-specific “independent experts,” a role more focused on technical assistance, for the Central African Republic, Mali and Somalia.

Additionally, there are several dozen “thematic mandates,” which task experts or working groups to analyze phenomena related to particular human rights. Those include special rapporteurs on “torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment,” the human rights of migrants, the elimination of discrimination against people affected by leprosy and the sale, sexual exploitation and sexual abuse of children.