Migrants sold for £300 at Libyan slave auctions
MIGRANTS trying to reach Europe from Africa are being sold at slave auctions in Libya for as little as £300 each, according to an investigation.
Mobile phone footage appears to show men being brought before crowds and offered for sale. One seller says he is offering ‘big strong boys for farm work’.
Libya, which has been wracked by civil war since 2011, has become the main departure point for Africans hoping to reach Europe, who crowd on to people- smugglers’ leaky boats and set sail across the Mediterranean.
But according to CNN, those who run out of money on the way fall prey to slave traders.
The US TV channel said a reporter travelled to Libya to verify the phone footage, and wit- nessed a separate auction outside the capital Tripoli in which a dozen people went ‘under the hammer’ in less than seven minutes.
A salesman dressed in camouflage gear said: ‘ Does anybody need a digger? This is a digger, a big strong man, he’ll dig. What am I bid, what am I bid?’ Buyers then raised their hands and within minutes the men were handed over to their new ‘masters’.
More than 100,000 migrants have crossed the Mediterranean to Europe so far this year, according to the UN, while more than 2,400 have died in the attempt. There has been a recent crackdown on smuggler vessels, meaning that some of those who arrive in Libya have no boats on which to leave, and the smugglers have nowhere to send the migrants.
As a result, they are ending up being sold by the smugglers.
CNN said they had handed over their footage to the Libyan authorities, who have promised to launch an investigation. They spoke to one 21-year-old man called Victory at a migrant detention centre in Tripoli, who said he was sold at a slave auction after fleeing Nigeria.
He had paid people-smugglers to help him on his journey. But when his funds ran out, Victory said he was sold as a labourer by the smugglers, who told him that the profit made from the transactions would serve to reduce the money he owed. But after weeks of being forced to work, Victory was told the price he’d been sold for was not high enough. He was returned to his smugglers, and then re-sold several more times. He is now waiting to be sent back to Nigeria from the detention centre.
First Lieutenant Naser Hazam, of Libya’s Anti Illegal Immigration Agency, told CNN that although he had not witnessed a slave auction, he acknowledged that gangs are operating people- smuggling rings in the country.
He added: ‘They fill a boat with 100 people, those people may or may not make it. [The smuggler] does not care as long as he gets the money, and the migrant may get to Europe or die at sea.’
Mohammed Abdiker, director of operations and emergencies for the International Organization for Migration, who visited Tripoli earlier this year, said: ‘Some reports are truly horrifying and the latest reports of “slave markets” for migrants can be added to a long list of outrages.’
‘Long list of outrages’