Nigerian Women and children and others making the dangerous journey to Europe to flee poverty and conflicts in Africa are being beaten, raped and starved in “living hellholes” in Libya, the United Nations children’s agency (UNICEF) said on Tuesday.
The Mediterranean Sea between Libya and Italy has become the main crossing point for asylum seekers and economic migrants seeking a better life in Europe, after a clampdown on sea crossings from Turkey.
There were a quarter of a million migrants in Libya as of last September, most of whom languish in unsanitary, disease-ridden detention centres which UNICEF described in its report as “no more than forced labour camps … and makeshift prisons”.
Armed groups have taken effective control of official detention centres for migrants amid the political chaos that now reigns in Libya and they also run their own centres, competing and cooperating with criminal gangs and smugglers, according to the United Nations.
“For the thousands of migrant women and children incarcerated, (the centres) were living hellholes where people were held for months,” the UNICEF report said on Tuesday.
In interviews with more than 100 women and children, nearly half said they had been raped or abused several times during their journey, it said. Most of the children said they were beaten by adults along the way, with girls suffering more abuse than boys.
“Here (in the detention centre) they treat us like chickens. They beat us, they do not give us good water and good food,” said Jon, a 14-year-old boy who travelled alone from Nigeria to escape the militant group Boko Haram.
“So many people are dying here, dying from disease, freezing to death,” he was quoted as saying in the report.
Gift Peters, one of the 171 Nigerians who voluntarily returned home from Libya on Tuesday last week recounted how she was sold into slavery in the North African country.
The woman who arrived the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos on a chartered flight said she got to Libya 11 months ago after being deceived that she was being taken to Germany.
“When I got to Libya, it was not in my mind to continue with the journey. So I asked the person that took me to return me to Nigeria but he started maltreating me and sold me to someone who has a connection house in Libya where we were maltreated daily.
“If we don’t want to work, they will start maltreating us. They will do you something that you will wish to die.
“Those who they sold us to, sometimes, use iron and start burning us. At times, they will instruct our fellow ladies to urinate for us to drink,” the Delta State indigene said amidst tears.
UNICEF said women and unaccompanied child migrants rely on people smugglers to get to Europe, often under a “pay as you go system”, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation, trafficking and violence, including prostitution and rape.
Smugglers typically demand thousands of dollars from migrants for a risky journey across the desert before cramming them onto ill-equipped boats for a perilous crossing of the Mediterranean.
“The route is mostly controlled by smugglers, traffickers and other people seeking to prey upon desperate children and women who are simply seeking refuge or a better life,” said Afshan Khan, head of UNICEF’s refugee operations in Europe.
Having largely closed off sea crossings between Turkey and Greece last year, the European Union is searching for ways to stem the flow of migrants from Libya.
