Attacks on migrants turn deadly

THREE Libyans killed a Nigerian man by setting him on fire in Tripoli, the interior ministry said yesterday, in what a UN agency described as “another senseless crime against migrants in the country”.

The Tripoli- based interior ministry said in a statement it had arrested the three suspects, adding that they had used petrol to set the victim alight at a factory.

Federico Soda, Libya country chief for the International Organisation for Migration ( IOM), a UN migration agency, said those responsible must be held accountable.

There are half a million migrants in Libya according to IOM, some of them having worked in the oil producing country before it descended into chaos and warfare, others attempting to travel through it to Europe.

The IOM and the UN refugee agency UN High Commissioner for Refugees had both repeatedly said Libya should not be classified as a safe port for migrants.

Thousands have attempted the perilous sea crossing to Europe this year, with hundreds drowned in ship wrecks.

In July, three migrants from Sudan were shot dead by Libyan authorities while trying to flee detention after they were disembarked in Khums.

In May, around 30 mostly Bangladeshi migrants were shot dead in a southern desert town after being abducted by a local gang, Bangladesh and the Libyan interior ministry said at the time.

No motive for the shocking crime against the Nigerian was given.

Three other migrants suffered burns and were being treated in hospital, the ministry said.

“The young man was burnt alive, in yet again another senseless crime against migrants in the country,” tweeted Soda.

The migrant’s death underscores the perils that migrants face in Libya, which has emerged as a major transit point for African and Arab migrants fleeing war and poverty.

Rights groups say the efforts have left migrants at the mercy of brutal armed groups or confined in squalid and overcrowded detention centres that lack adequate food and water. |