By Faith Nyasuguta
About 5,000 migrants have been detained in Libya, The Norwegian Refugee Council has said.
According to the NGO, this is the fiercest crackdown launched so far by the Libyan authorities targeting migrants.
A human rights worker for the Norwegian Refugee Council alleges that up to 5,000 refugees may have been detained in Libya since Friday last week.
The allegations were made on Sunday after a Friday crackdown by the Libyan police force against the migrants.
“This is the largest crackdown on migrants in Libya that we’ve seen in recent years. This is not the first time that there have been large numbers of arrests, we’ve seen this happen a bit on a smaller scale over the last few weeks and months and over the course of the last year there were upwards of 5,000 migrants and refugees in Libyan detention centers at a time, so this is not a new practice, but certainly, these are the biggest numbers that we’ve seen in a single 24-hour or 36-hour period”, Alexandra Saieh, the Libya advocacy manager for the Norwegian Refugee Council said.
The United Nations revealed that the crackdown resulted in at least one dead migrant and 15 injured ones.
According to the Libyan authorities, there were at least 4,000 detentions, among them women and children.
The Libyan Interior Ministry dubbed the crackdown a security operation against illegal migrants and drug trafficking.
“High-income countries, particularly those in Europe, must do more. This is really a wake-up call to the dire situation that exists in Libya for migrants and refugees and the international community must step up”, Alexandra Saieh said.
Years after the fall of Moammar Ghadhafi’s regime in 2011, Libya has turned into a major transit point into Europe for migrants fleeing war and famine in Africa and the Middle East.
