UN experts: Libya under threat by foreign fighters
UNITED NATIONS – Libya faces a serious security threat from foreign fighters and private military companies, especially Russia’s Wagner Group which has violated international law, U.N. experts said in a report obtained by The Associated Press.
The experts also accused seven Libyan armed groups of systematically using unlawful detention to punish perceived opponents, ignoring international and domestic civil rights laws, including laws prohibiting torture.
In particular, “migrants have been extremely vulnerable to human rights abuses and regularly subjected to acts of slavery, rape and torture,” the panel said in the report to the U.N. Security Council obtained late Friday by the AP.
The oil-rich North African nation plunged into turmoil after a Natobacked uprising in 2011 toppled dictator Moammar Gadhafi, who was later killed. It then became divided between rival governments – one in the east, backed by military commander Khalifa Hifter, and a U.n.-supported administration in the capital of Tripoli. Each side is supported by different militias and foreign powers.
In April 2019, Hifter and his forces, backed by Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, launched an offensive to try and capture Tripoli. His campaign collapsed after Turkey stepped up its military support for the U.n.-supported government with hundreds of troops and thousands of Syrian mercenaries.
An October 2020 cease-fire deal led to an agreement on a transitional government in early February 2021 and elections were scheduled for last Dec. 24 aimed at unifying the country. But they were canceled and the country now has rival governments with two Libyans claiming to be prime minister.
The cease-fire agreement called for the speedy withdrawal of all foreign fighters and mercenaries but the panel said “there has been little verifiable evidence of any large-scale withdrawals taking place to date.”
The report said Chadian opposition groups operate from Libya and Sudanese fighters have been recruited by Hifter. Turkish-backed Syrian fighters have been seen by the panel in government military camps in Tripoli while Hifteraffiliated Syrian fighters operate alongside the Wagner Group’s fighters in the strategic northern city of Sirte and nearby Jufra. At least 300 of these Syrians have returned home and not been replaced by Hifter, the report said.
The panel said it continues to investigate the deployment of Wagner fighters and the transfers of arms and related materiel to support its operations.
The Wagner Group passes itself off as a private military contractor and the Kremlin denies any connection to it. But the United States identifies Wagner’s financer as Yevgeny Prigozhin, an oligarch who is close to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The panel said it considers a Samsung electronic tablet left on a Libyan battlefield by a Wagner mercenary and obtained by the BBC in early 2021 to be authentic. It contained maps of the locations of 35 unmarked anti-personnel mines in the Ain Zara area of south Tripoli, then a frontline area under Hifter’s control, supported by Wagner.
Several mines had never been reported as being in Libya before and their transfer therefore violated the U.N. arms embargo, the panel said.