And this is not the first time a commercial ship has taken migrants to Libya in what appears to be a violation of international law. Others are picked up by commercial ships, like the Nivin. The reason the slave trade can happen is because there is really no rule of law across much of Libya, Leonard Doyle of the International Organization of Migration said to Al Jazeera. In the absence of humanitarian missions, many migrants are rescued by Libyan patrol boats, which by policy take migrants to Libya. The last privately operating rescue ship, the Aquarius, is not currently operating, after Panama revoked its registration the Italian government has also demanded the seizure of the vessel, alleging that humanitarian groups engaged in illegal dumping. And the small fleet of lifesaving vessels dwindled this summer, before vanishing completely. The impetus for sanctions use against human trafficking and people smuggling in 2018 lay in the simultaneous surge of migration through Libya as a transcontinental conduit to Europe and global outrage over CNN footage of migrants on auction at a modern-day slave market in Tripoli. Humanitarian rescue ships have traditionally taken rescued migrants to Europe - but that's grown more difficult as more European ports have closed off access to migrant rescue vessels. Two migrants said the crew on the cargo ship that saved them, said they would be going to Malta - but then headed to Libya instead. One said his brother was killed by people smugglers in Libya another said he saw detainees shot to death at an official detention center, during an escape. The issue of the open slave market in Libya gained widespread attention in 2017 when footage of migrants being sold at an open-air market in the city of Sabha. Parallels Migrants Captured In Libya Say They End Up Sold As SlavesĪl Jazeera spoke to multiple migrants on board the cargo ship Nivin before the forced removal. Migrants told NPR's Ruth Sherlock and Lama al-Arian that the official detention centers function as slave markets, with one Gambian man calling the center where he was held the "prison where they sell people."Īnd outside of those detention centers, migrants also face threats from militias, criminal gangs and smuggling networks.Ī man named Mohammed, from Niger, said he paid smugglers to take him across North Africa into Europe, but he was imprisoned by a militia, held for ransom and sold to a man who used him as a farm laborer. Then a CNN investigation found evidence of open-air slave markets selling African migrants in Libya. Men, women and children said they were beaten by guards, while women said they were raped. In 2017, human rights monitors visited detention centers in Tripoli and witnessed "thousands of emaciated and traumatized men, women and children piled on top of each other, locked up in hangars with no access to the most basic necessities," UN human rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said. The Two-Way Amnesty International: Europe Complicit In Libyan Migrant Abuses
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