At least 5,000 migrants and refugees have been detained in Tripoli, Libya over the past few days as part of a security campaign launched on Friday.
The number of people deprived of their liberty in detention centers has therefore tripled in the capital in five days, according to a communication from Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) on Wednesday. The Libyan Interior Ministry announced on Friday that it was launching this campaign to fight drug and alcohol traffickers and illegal migrants in the Gargaresh neighborhood west of the capital.
A few hours later, the ministry said that a migrant detention center had received “4,000 illegal migrants of various nationalities” as part of this campaign.
MSF, which provides medical care in three detention centers in Tripoli, says it has observed that some detainees are kept “in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions without access to food, water, shelter or medical care. medical”.
The NGO also claims that many captives suffered “serious physical violence, including sexual violence” during raids in their homes.
The United Nations announced on Saturday that a migrant had been killed and 15 others injured in the roundups.
For two days, MSF staff have been able to visit two detention centers. In one of them, they saw more than 500 people crammed into cells, more than twice as many as the usual situation. Clashes took place due to protests by detainees.
MSF calls on the government to end the mass arrests of vulnerable migrants and refugees and to release all those arbitrarily detained. It also calls for the resumption of humanitarian evacuation and resettlement flights outside Libya.
Libya has become the main transit route for migrants trying to reach Europe by sea since chaos settled in the North African country after the 2011 uprisings and the fall of dictator Muamar Gaddafi.
