Libya’s Government of National Unity (GNU) Foreign Ministry responded Saturday to the report of the UN Independent Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) on Libya on violations against migrants, saying that migrants detention centers’ reality requires international support, and GNU should not be left alone in this regard.
Foreign Minister Najla Mangoush personally checked out some detention centers in the capital, Tripoli, and monitored during her visits the weakness and disappearance of international aid, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
The Ministry pointed out to “the commitment of most government centers to treating migrants in private health centers at the expense of the authorities in Libya, and providing meals on a regular basis, in addition to the activity of civil society organizations and Libyan citizens in providing aid and relief to migrants in these centers all over the country.”
It indicated that the UN report “neglected to mention the cooperation of the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Defence Ministry’s Brigade 444, as well as the Interior Ministry’s Law Enforcement Department and the security services cooperating with the Public Prosecutor’s Office in dismantling local networks for smuggling migrants and human trafficking in Bani Walid, Qurayyat and Al-Shweirf, and the liberation of migrants who were detained in illegal detention centers to collect migrants who enter Libya from different countries, in coordination with international and foreign gangs.
The UN Independent Fact-Finding Mission on Libya expressed deep concern over the country’s deteriorating human rights situation in its final report today, concluding there are grounds to believe a wide array of war crimes and crimes against humanity have been committed by State security forces and armed militia groups.
The investigation, which outlines a broad effort by authorities to repress dissent by civil society, documented numerous cases of arbitrary detention, murder, rape, enslavement, extrajudicial killing and enforced disappearance, and said that nearly all survivors interviewed had refrained from lodging official complaints out of fear of reprisals, arrest, extortion and a lack of confidence in the justice system.
Migrants, in particular, have been targeted and there is overwhelming evidence that they have been systematically tortured. The report said there were reasonable grounds to believe that sexual slavery, a crime against humanity, was committed against migrants.