Migrants Bought and Sold in ‘Slave Markets’ in Libya
Migrants who escaped from Libya described to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) being bought and sold in public “slave markets.”
The U.N. agency said a Senegalese man paid around $320 to cross the Sahara from Niger, but when he arrived in Libya the driver said he was never paid and took them to a parking area in Sabha, where “sub-Saharan migrants were being sold and bought by Libyans, with the support of Ghanaians and Nigerians who work for them.”
The man was bought and taken to a private house where over a hundred migrants were being held hostage. They were made to call their families to ask for ransom while being beaten. He was then sold to another Libyan, who held migrants in poor conditions and fed them once a day. Those who couldn’t raise ransoms were killed or starved to death, he said.
IOM said it had heard similar testimonies from other migrants in Libya and from the increasing number of people returning home via Niger. IOM in Niger has facilitated 1,500 repatriations in the first three months of 2016, almost as many as all of 2015.
“There are now more migrants coming back from Libya, so that’s also why all these stories are coming to the surface,” chief of mission at IOM Niger, Giuseppe Loprete, told the Guardian. “And conditions are worsening in Libya so I think we can also expect more in the coming months.”
“The more IOM engages inside Libya, the more we learn that it is a vale of tears for all too many migrants,” said Mohammed Abdiker, IOM’s head of operation and emergencies.
Fire Destroys Refugee Camp in France
A major fire left a refugee camp in Grande-Synthe in ruins and hundreds of its former residents scattered by the blaze.
The fire broke out following a fight between Afghans and Kurds in the camp, which was sheltering around 1,500 people, most of whom hope to eventually reach Britain. It was France’s first official refugee camp when it was established by Doctors Without Borders (MSF) last year.
French officials said five people were injured in the fight and five others were hurt in the fire.
Michel Lalande, prefect for France’s Nord region, said it was unlikely the camp could be rebuilt. MSF is still deciding what to do next, and aid groups are distributing food to the camps’ former residents in the interim, the Associated Press reported.
Around 500 people took shelter in three local gymnasiums, but hundreds of refugees and migrants remain unaccounted for and may have gone underground out of fear of authorities or others in the camp, humanitarian workers told the news agency.
U.N. Asks Europe Not to Return Refugees to Hungary
The U.N. Refugee Agency called on European countries not to return asylum seekers back to Hungary under the E.U.’s Dublin Regulation due to harsh new laws in the country.
Hungary last month introduced a bill ordering the mandatory detention of all asylum seekers and migrants in shipping containers in a border zone.
UNHCR said 110 people, including four children, have been locked up in the so-called transit camp since the law took effect on March 28.
“The situation for asylum seekers in Hungary, which was already of deep concern to UNHCR, has only gotten worse since the new law introducing mandatory detention for asylum seekers came into effect,” said Filippo Grandi, U.N. high commissioner for refugees.
Grandi asked E.U. countries to “suspend any Dublin transfer of asylum seekers to this country until the Hungarian authorities bring their practices and policies in line with European and international law.”
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