Amnesty International said that Libyan security forces and militias in Tripoli have used unlawful lethal force and other violence in an unprecedented roundup of over 5,000 men, women, and children from Sub-Saharan Africa and are holding them in horrid conditions where torture and sexual abuse are rampant.
Amnesty International urged the Libyan authorities to immediately release all those arbitrarily detained solely on the basis of their migration status and to launch investigations into all incidents of unlawful use of force, torture and sexual violence.
“In the interim, authorities should ensure that those in detention are treated humanely, held in conditions that meet international standards and granted unimpeded access to UNHCR and other humanitarian actors without delay,” Amnesty International said in a statement.
On 1 October, armed men from militias and security forces affiliated with Libya’s Interior Ministry violently broke into homes and temporary shelters in the Gargaresh area in Tripoli, home to a sizable population of refugees and migrants, firing rounds of live ammunition, damaging belongings and stealing valuables, the statement said.
Terrified migrants and refugees, including several registered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), were then transferred to detention centres in Tripoli, where they are denied regular and confidential access to UNHCR and other humanitarian agencies and subjected to torture and other ill-treatment, according to Amnesty International.
According to eyewitnesses and video analysis, in the early hours of 1 October, armed men wearing uniforms with logos of the Interior Ministry and two affiliated militias, the Security Directorate’s Support Force and the Public Security Agency, whose role in violations against migrants and refugees has previously been documented by Amnesty International, arrived in Gargaresh. Some were riding in armoured vehicles with mounted weapons and fired live rounds at unarmed refugees and migrants as they began to arbitrarily arrest thousands of Sub-Saharan Africans, it explained.
“Migrants and refugees told Amnesty International that armed men beat and kicked them, ransacked houses and stole money and belongings. Women reported that armed men groped them during the raid,” it added.
“Since the raid, security forces and militias have been carrying out further arrests of refugees and migrants from across Tripoli”