Security authorities in eastern Libya have dismantled a human trafficking gang in the city of Amsaad and freed dozens of irregular migrants who were being held in livestock pens.
The Criminal Investigation Department, Amassad branch, said on Thursday that it raided a hideout used to conceal irregular migrants and seized 160 people in “inhuman conditions,” noting that this operation comes “as part of security tasks aimed at protecting people from exploitation and complementing efforts to dismantle human trafficking networks.”
The agency explained that the operation came after it received “accurate information about the presence of a group of irregular migrants in a location not intended for housing, namely livestock barns that lacked the minimum requirements for human life.”
According to the agency, investigations revealed that the migrants “were subjected to severe pressure and coercion, with the aim of humiliating them and extorting money from them in exchange for their release and smuggling them out of the country. After the raid, it became clear that they were living in inappropriate conditions that violated their dignity and contravened humanitarian and security laws.”
The agency reported that following the raid, it was found that 145 migrants were Egyptian nationals and 15 were from Sudan, noting that “the necessary legal measures had been taken against them, in preparation for referring them to the competent authorities to follow up on the investigation and take action in accordance with the law,” and confirming that it was intensifying its investigations and combating all forms of crime, in implementation of the instructions of the head of the Criminal Investigation Agency, Major General Ahmed Al-Shamikh.
In the same context, the Ajdabiya Security Directorate said on Thursday that it had arrested seven Sudanese nationals without identification documents who had entered the country illegally, noting that they had been detained pending referral to the competent illegal immigration authorities.
Earlier this month, authorities in western Libya announced the deportation of “dozens” of illegal immigrants from Nigeria via Mitiga International Airport in the Libyan capital, Tripoli. The Interior Ministry of the Government of National Unity included this step in what is known as the “plan to organize voluntary deportations and the safe return of migrants,” which contributes to alleviating the security and humanitarian burdens resulting from this phenomenon.
According to Nigeria’s National Commission for Refugees, Migrants, and Internally Displaced Persons, 7,000 Nigerian migrants remain stranded in detention centers across Libya. At least 60 migrants, including women and children, died after two boats sank off the coast of Libya on June 18, according to the International Organization for Migration.
