Child migrants caught in Libyan ‘hellholes’

WOMEN and children making the dangerous journey to Europe from Africa are being beaten, raped and starved in “living hellholes” in Libya, the United Nations children’s agency (Unicef) said yesterday.

The Mediterranean between Libya and Italy has become the main crossing point for asylum seekers and economic migrants after a clampdown on sea crossings from Turkey.

There were a quarter of a million migrants in Libya as of last September, most of whom languish in disease-ridden detention centres which Unicef described as “no more than forced la- bour camps … and makeshift prisons”. Armed groups have taken effective control of official detention centres for migrants amid political chaos in Libya and also run their own centres, competing and cooperating with criminal gangs and smugglers, the UN has said.

“For the thousands of migrant women and children incarcerated, [the centres] were living hellholes where people were held for months,” the Unicef report said.

In interviews with more than 100 women and children, nearly half said they had been raped or abused several times during their journey, it said. Most of the children said they were beaten by adults along the way, with girls suf- fering more abuse than boys. “Here [in the detention centre] they treat us like chickens. They beat us, they do not give us good water and good food,” said Jon, a 14-year-old boy who travelled alone from Nigeria to escape the militant group Boko Haram.

Unicef said women and unaccompanied children rely on people smugglers to get to Europe, often under a “pay as you go system”, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation, trafficking and violence, including prostitution and rape.

This month European leaders offered Libya money and other help to try to cut the number heading into the Mediterranean. Aid groups said such plans expose migrants to more abuses.