Traffickers busy in Libya
Europe has been accused of failing migrants in Libya as human traffickers thrive, reports Kieran Guilbert, of the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
THE rise of antiimmigration political parties in nations across Europe and efforts to stem migration mean more migrants in Libya are struggling to leave, falling into the hands of traffickers and being sold into slavery, experts say.
RISING populism across Europe is fuelling human trafficking in Libya where a growing number of migrants are being trapped in detention centres and sold into slavery, aid officials told a recent conference on modernday slavery.
The rise of antiimmigration political parties in nations from Italy to Slovenia and Europewide efforts to stem migration means more migrants in Libya are struggling to leave and are falling into the hands of traffickers, several experts say.
A video appearing to show Africans sold as slaves in Libya sparked a global outcry last year and put the spotlight on the lawless nation where thousands of migrants are held, tortured, and even killed, the United Nations and rights groups say.
‘‘It is more difficult [for migrants] to leave Libya now
. . . and the traffickers have to monetise their investments,’’ UN refugee agency (UNHCR) senior official Vincent
Cochetel said.
‘‘They sell people, they lease them, they rent them,’’ the UNHCR Special Envoy for the Central Mediterranean told the Thomson Reuters
Foundation’s oneday Trust Conference at the European Parliament in Brussels.
The number of migrants reaching Italy has fallen sharply since last July when a major smuggling group in
Libya struck a deal to halt departures under Italian pressure.
Libya’s coastguard has also returned more migrants after intercepting them at sea, with backing from the European Union.
European countries needed to do more to stop the illegal trade in Libya of inflatable boats which were bought from China and exported through the continent, and enforce a European Union ruling to limit their sale, Cochetel said.
‘‘These dinghy boats have killed more people than the country’s civil war since 2011,’’ he said.
About 140 East African migrants escaped from traffickers holding them captive near the Libyan town of Bani Walid last month, and several were hospitalised to treat injuries inflicted by torture during captivity or efforts to recapture them, the UN migration agency said.
‘‘Several of these people were brought to detention centres when they should have been treated as victims of trafficking,’’ Inma Vazquez, representative to the EU and Nato for global aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders), said.
‘‘We are seeing people physically and mentally broken — with burns, scars on their backs and legs broken in several parts.’’
Pierre Vimont, a former head of the EU’s foreign service, said the number of migrants trapped in Libya was likely to increase further as populism swept across Europe in countries such as Italy, Austria and Germany.
Italy’s new interior minister Matteo Salvini said last week his country would not be Europe’s ‘‘refugee camp’’, having seen more than 600,000 migrants arrive since 2014, and vowed tough action to reduce arrivals and send back migrants.
‘‘Europe is looking to push back this migration wave . . . to see how they can contain and push back migrants,’’ Vimont said, adding that more needed to be done to stop people leaving African nations and trying to reach Europe.
‘‘But the problem with their reaction is that they are behind the curve, reacting too late. They don’t know how to act.’’