Since armed conflict erupted in Libya in 2011, during the fall of Muammar Gaddafi, some 200,000 people have been internally displaced.
ISIL, or Da’esh, terrorist fighters took over Derna in 2014, leading to a succession of battles for control of the city, involving the Shura Council of Mujahideen, a coalition of pro-sharia law Islamist militants, the Libyan national army and local militias.
Increasing hostilities in the oil-rich city of Derna are becoming an increasing source of concern said the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Libya on Friday, following an intensification in fighting which has resulted in “substantial civilian casualties”.
“I am deeply concerned by the escalation of hostilities in the eastern city of Derna and the consequent further deterioration of the humanitarian situation in parts of the city”, said Maria Ribeiro. In addition to substantial civilian casualties, Ms. Ribeiro said that recent intense fighting has reportedly resulted in deteriorating infrastructures and services, leaving some civilians without basic food, water and urgent lifesaving medical care for families and the wounded.
“I firmly call for unconditional, unimpeded and sustained humanitarian access to the affected civilians in the old city”, she underscored, urging all conflict parties to respect and protect civilians and civilian facilities, and to “strictly adhere to their obligations under International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights Law.”
Back in December, a trauma hospital in Benghazi, the country’s second-largest city, was hit and before that media reports said that Da’esh had claimed responsibility for attacking the Foreign Ministry in the capital, Tripoli.
In November, fighting between armed militia damaged a Tripoli hospital for Women and Childbirth, resulting in a doctor being shot and a three-day halt to non-emergency medical services.
Meanwhile, migrants and refugees are being subjected to "unimaginable horrors" from the moment they enter Libya in what Ghassan Salamé, the head of the UN political mission there (UNSMIL), told the Security Council last month was a “hidden human calamity”.
11 January 2019
Peace and Security
https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/01/1030312
================================
Migrants and refugees are being subjected to "unimaginable horrors" from the moment they enter Libya, throughout their stay in the country and – if they make it that far – during their attempts to cross the Mediterranean, according to a report released on Thursday, by the United Nations political mission in Libya (UNSMIL) and the UN human rights office (OHCHR).
"There is a local and international failure to handle this hidden human calamity that continues to take place in Libya," said Ghassan Salamé, who heads UNSMIL.
From unlawful killings, arbitrary detention and torture, to gang rape, slavery, and human trafficking, the report covers a 20-month period up to August 2018, and details a terrible litany of violations and abuses committed by a range of State officials, armed groups, smugglers and traffickers against migrants and refugees.
Unidentified bodies of migrants and refugees bearing gunshot wounds, torture marks and burns are frequently uncovered in rubbish bins, dry river beds, farms and the desert - UN Libya report on migrants and refugees
The findings are based on 1,300 first-hand accounts gathered by UN human rights staff in Libya itself, as well from migrants who have returned to Nigeria, or managed to reach Italy, tracing the entire journey of migrants and refugees from Libya’s southern border, across the desert to the northern coast.
The climate of lawlessness in Libya provides fertile ground for illicit activities, leaving migrants and refugees "at the mercy of countless predators who view them as commodities to be exploited and extorted," the report says, noting that “the overwhelming majority of women and older teenage girls” report having been “gang raped by smugglers or traffickers."
Many people are sold from one criminal group to another and held in unofficial and illegal centres run directly by armed groups or criminal gangs. "Countless migrants and refugees lost their lives during captivity by smugglers, after being shot, tortured to death, or simply left to die from starvation or medical neglect," the report says. "Across Libya, unidentified bodies of migrants and refugees bearing gunshot wounds, torture marks and burns are frequently uncovered in rubbish bins, dry river beds, farms and the desert."
Those who manage to survive the abuse and exploitation, and attempt the perilous Mediterranean crossing, are increasingly being intercepted – or “rescued” as some claim – by the Libyan Coast Guard. Since early 2017, the approximately 29,000 migrants returned to Libya by the Coast Guard were placed in detention centres where thousands remain indefinitely and arbitrarily, without due process or access to lawyers or consular services.
UN staff visiting 11 detention centres, where thousands of migrants and refugees are being held, documented torture, ill-treatment, forced labour, and rape by the guards. Migrants held in the centres are systematically subjected to starvation and severe beatings, burned with hot metal objects, electrocuted and subjected to other forms of ill-treatment with the aim of extorting money from their families through a complex system of money transfers.
The detention centres are characterized by severe overcrowding, lack of ventilation and lighting, and insufficient washing facilities and latrines. In addition to the abuses and violence committed against the people held there, many of them suffer from malnutrition, skin infections, acute diarrhoea, respiratory-tract infections and other ailments, as well as inadequate medical treatment. Children are held with adults in the same squalid conditions.
The report points to the apparent "complicity of some State actors, including local officials, members of armed groups formally integrated into State institutions, and representatives of the Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Defence, in the smuggling or trafficking of migrants and refugees."
The UN independent human rights expert on torture, Nils Melzer, estimates that, given the risks of facing human rights abuses in the country, transfers and returns to Libya can be considered a violation of the international legal principle of “non-refoulement”, which protects asylum seekers and migrants against returns to countries where they have reason to fear violence or persecution.
"The situation is utterly dreadful," said Michelle Bachelet on Thursday, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. "Tackling the rampant impunity would not only end the suffering of tens of thousands of migrant and refugee women, men and children seeking a better life, but also undercut the parallel illicit economy built on the abuse of these people and help establish the rule of law and national institutions."
The report calls on European States to reconsider the human costs of their policies and ensure that their cooperation and assistance to the Libyan authorities respectful of human rights, and in line with international human rights and refugee law, so they do not, directly or indirectly, result in men, women and children being trapped in abusive situations with little hope of protection and remedy.
Increasing hostilities in the oil-rich city of Derna are becoming an increasing source of concern said the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Libya on Friday, following an intensification in fighting which has resulted in “substantial civilian casualties”.
“I am deeply concerned by the escalation of hostilities in the eastern city of Derna and the consequent further deterioration of the humanitarian situation in parts of the city”, said Maria Ribeiro. In addition to substantial civilian casualties, Ms. Ribeiro said that recent intense fighting has reportedly resulted in deteriorating infrastructures and services, leaving some civilians without basic food, water and urgent lifesaving medical care for families and the wounded.
“I firmly call for unconditional, unimpeded and sustained humanitarian access to the affected civilians in the old city”, she underscored, urging all conflict parties to respect and protect civilians and civilian facilities, and to “strictly adhere to their obligations under International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights Law.”
Back in December, a trauma hospital in Benghazi, the country’s second-largest city, was hit and before that media reports said that Da’esh had claimed responsibility for attacking the Foreign Ministry in the capital, Tripoli.
In November, fighting between armed militia damaged a Tripoli hospital for Women and Childbirth, resulting in a doctor being shot and a three-day halt to non-emergency medical services.
Meanwhile, migrants and refugees are being subjected to "unimaginable horrors" from the moment they enter Libya in what Ghassan Salamé, the head of the UN political mission there (UNSMIL), told the Security Council last month was a “hidden human calamity”.
11 January 2019
Peace and Security
https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/01/1030312
================================
Migrants and refugees are being subjected to "unimaginable horrors" from the moment they enter Libya, throughout their stay in the country and – if they make it that far – during their attempts to cross the Mediterranean, according to a report released on Thursday, by the United Nations political mission in Libya (UNSMIL) and the UN human rights office (OHCHR).
"There is a local and international failure to handle this hidden human calamity that continues to take place in Libya," said Ghassan Salamé, who heads UNSMIL.
From unlawful killings, arbitrary detention and torture, to gang rape, slavery, and human trafficking, the report covers a 20-month period up to August 2018, and details a terrible litany of violations and abuses committed by a range of State officials, armed groups, smugglers and traffickers against migrants and refugees.
Unidentified bodies of migrants and refugees bearing gunshot wounds, torture marks and burns are frequently uncovered in rubbish bins, dry river beds, farms and the desert - UN Libya report on migrants and refugees
The findings are based on 1,300 first-hand accounts gathered by UN human rights staff in Libya itself, as well from migrants who have returned to Nigeria, or managed to reach Italy, tracing the entire journey of migrants and refugees from Libya’s southern border, across the desert to the northern coast.
The climate of lawlessness in Libya provides fertile ground for illicit activities, leaving migrants and refugees "at the mercy of countless predators who view them as commodities to be exploited and extorted," the report says, noting that “the overwhelming majority of women and older teenage girls” report having been “gang raped by smugglers or traffickers."
Many people are sold from one criminal group to another and held in unofficial and illegal centres run directly by armed groups or criminal gangs. "Countless migrants and refugees lost their lives during captivity by smugglers, after being shot, tortured to death, or simply left to die from starvation or medical neglect," the report says. "Across Libya, unidentified bodies of migrants and refugees bearing gunshot wounds, torture marks and burns are frequently uncovered in rubbish bins, dry river beds, farms and the desert."
Those who manage to survive the abuse and exploitation, and attempt the perilous Mediterranean crossing, are increasingly being intercepted – or “rescued” as some claim – by the Libyan Coast Guard. Since early 2017, the approximately 29,000 migrants returned to Libya by the Coast Guard were placed in detention centres where thousands remain indefinitely and arbitrarily, without due process or access to lawyers or consular services.
UN staff visiting 11 detention centres, where thousands of migrants and refugees are being held, documented torture, ill-treatment, forced labour, and rape by the guards. Migrants held in the centres are systematically subjected to starvation and severe beatings, burned with hot metal objects, electrocuted and subjected to other forms of ill-treatment with the aim of extorting money from their families through a complex system of money transfers.
The detention centres are characterized by severe overcrowding, lack of ventilation and lighting, and insufficient washing facilities and latrines. In addition to the abuses and violence committed against the people held there, many of them suffer from malnutrition, skin infections, acute diarrhoea, respiratory-tract infections and other ailments, as well as inadequate medical treatment. Children are held with adults in the same squalid conditions.
The report points to the apparent "complicity of some State actors, including local officials, members of armed groups formally integrated into State institutions, and representatives of the Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Defence, in the smuggling or trafficking of migrants and refugees."
The UN independent human rights expert on torture, Nils Melzer, estimates that, given the risks of facing human rights abuses in the country, transfers and returns to Libya can be considered a violation of the international legal principle of “non-refoulement”, which protects asylum seekers and migrants against returns to countries where they have reason to fear violence or persecution.
"The situation is utterly dreadful," said Michelle Bachelet on Thursday, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. "Tackling the rampant impunity would not only end the suffering of tens of thousands of migrant and refugee women, men and children seeking a better life, but also undercut the parallel illicit economy built on the abuse of these people and help establish the rule of law and national institutions."
The report calls on European States to reconsider the human costs of their policies and ensure that their cooperation and assistance to the Libyan authorities respectful of human rights, and in line with international human rights and refugee law, so they do not, directly or indirectly, result in men, women and children being trapped in abusive situations with little hope of protection and remedy.
20 December 2018
Migrants and Refugees
Migrants and Refugees
https://news.un.org/en/story/2018/12/1029031
