West African migrants are being bought and sold openly in modern-day
slave markets in Libya, reports the International Organization for
Migration, IOM.
Although trafficked people passing through Libya have previously
reported violence, extortion and slave labour, the latest reports from IOM suggests that the trade in human beings has become so
normalised that
people are being traded in public.
“The latest reports of ‘slave markets’ for migrants can be added to a
long list of outrages in Libya,” said Mohammed Abdiker, IOM’s head of
operation and emergencies. “The situation is dire. The more IOM engages
inside Libya, the more we learn that it is a vale of tears for all too
many migrants.”
The north African nation is a major exit point
for refugees from Africa trying to take get to Europe on rubber boats.
But since the overthrow of autocratic leader Muammar Gaddafi, the
country has slid into violent chaos and migrants
with little cash and usually no papers are particularly vulnerable.
One 34-year-old survivor from Senegal said he was taken to a dusty
lot in the south Libyan city of Sabha after crossing the desert from
Niger in a bus organised by people smugglers. The group had paid to be
taken to the coast, where they planned to risk a boat trip to Europe,
but their driver suddenly said middlemen had not passed on his fees and
put his passengers up for sale.
“The men on the pick-up were brought to a square, or parking lot,
where a kind of slave trade was happening. There were locals – he
described them as Arabs – buying sub-Saharan migrants,” said Livia
Manante, an IOM officer based in Niger who helps people wanting to
return home.
She interviewed the survivor after he escaped from Libya earlier this
month and said accounts of slave markets were confirmed by other
migrants she spoke to in Niger and some who had been interviewed by
colleagues in Europe.
“Several other migrants confirmed his story, independently describing
kinds of slave markets as well as kinds of private prisons all over in
Libya,” Manente said.
“IOM Italy has confirmed that this story is
similar to many stories reported by migrants and collected at landing
points in southern Italy, including the slave market reports. This gives
more evidence that the stories reported are true, as the stories of
those who managed to cross-match those who are returning back to their
countries.”
After his sale, the Senegalese migrant was taken to a makeshift
prison of a kind that has been well documented in Libya. Those held
inside are forced to work without pay, or on meagre rations, and their
captors regularly call family at home demanding a ransom. His captors
asked for 300,000 west African francs (about £380), then sold him on to a
larger jail where the demand doubled without explanation.
Men who lingered there too long without the ransom being paid were
taken away and killed, he said. Some wasted away on meagre rations in
unsanitary conditions, dying of hunger and disease, but overall numbers
never fell.
“If the number of migrants goes down, because of death or
someone is ransomed, the kidnappers just go to the market and buy one,”
Manente said.
His terrified family began scraping together loans. As he spoke
fluent English, French and some local languages, he translated for his
jailers to win time for relatives to collect the money.
“Many other migrants flee Libya with similar stories, said Giuseppe
Loprete, chief of mission at IOM Niger. “Its very clear they see
themselves as being treated as slaves,” he added.
Loprete’s office has arranged for the repatriation of 1,500 people in
the first three months of this year – almost the same number as in the
whole of 2015. He fears more horrors are likely to emerge.
“There
are now more migrants coming back from Libya, so that’s also why all
these stories are coming to the surface,” he said. “And conditions are
worsening in Libya so I think we can also expect more in the coming
months.”
Even growing international awareness of the problems migrants face is
being exploited. IOM has had credible reports of criminals posing as
aid groups that help migrants to lure in people who have escaped or
bought their freedom and want to return home.
The organisation is working to spread awareness across west Africa
of the horrors of the journey through the personal stories of those who
return. Though most migrants know the boat trips to Europe are
extremely risky, fewer realise they may face even worse dangers in Libya
before even reaching the coast.
“Tragically, the most credible messengers are migrants returning home
with IOM help,” said spokesman Leonard Doyle. “Too often they are
broken, brutalised and have been abused. Their voices carry more weight
than anyone else’s.”
Source: IOM/ The guardian
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