Libya: Crimes against humanity and widescale exploitation of migrants
The UN Independent Fact-Finding Mission on Libya on Monday expressed deep concern in its final report about the country’s deteriorating human rights situation. The human rights investigators said that there are grounds to believe that Libyan authorities and armed militia groups have been responsible for “a wide array of war crimes, and crimes against humanity” in recent years.
“The FFM on Libya has found reasonable ground to believe that crimes against humanity were committed against Libyan civilians and migrants who were deprived of their liberties throughout Libya since 2016,” said Mr. Mohamed Auajjar, Chair of the Libya Fact-Finding Mission, when talking to the media at the United Nations in Geneva.
Libya has been in turmoil since former long-time leader Muammar Gaddafi was ousted leaving the country divided between a UN-recognized Government of National Accord based in the capital Tripoli and the forces of General Khalifa Haftar’s self-styled Libyan National Army which holds sway in the east and southern areas of the country.
Migrants, in particular, have been targeted and there is overwhelming evidence that they have been systematically tortured, the report indicated.
“The Commission finalized its assessment of the evidence in the treatment of migrants,” said Mr. Auajjar. “The Mission has proven that it had enough reasons to believe that sexual slavery which is also a crime against humanity was committed against migrants.”
The Chair of the Fact-Finding mission also said that ”the Mission found that crimes against humanity have been committed against migrants in detention, and which are under the actual or nominal control of the Anti-illegal Immigration Agency, the Libyan port and the Stability Support Apparatus. He added that “these entities received technical, logistical and financial support from the EU and from the EU member countries in order to intercept the paths of migrants and to bring them back home.”
The Mission also expressed its concern about the role of the EU. “The support given by the EU to the Libyan coast guard in terms of pullbacks, pushbacks, interceptions, lead to violations of certain human rights,” said Chaloka Beyani. “Non-refoulement, for example, you can’t push people back to areas that are unsafe, and the Libyan waters are unsafe for embarkation of migrants, quite clearly.”
The report said that detainees were subjected regularly to torture, solitary confinement, held incommunicado and denied adequate access. It documents the “widespread practice” of arbitrary detention, murder, torture, rape, enslavement and enforced disappearance in the country. The Mission states for the first time that sexual slavery was committed against migrants in official detention centres and in secret prisons, amid rampant impunity.
“We have found instances of enslavement, of persons who have been traded to outside entities, to perform various services, but also sexual slavery of women of in and around detention centres,” said Tracy Robinson, Member of the Libya Fact-Finding Mission (FFM). “The findings in respect of both are new for the FFM and represents, I think, a very significant set of violations which we had not been able to establish in our previous reporting cycles.”
Established by the Human Rights Council in 2020 to look investigate human rights violation by all parties since the beginning of 2016, the FFM has undertaken 13 missions and conducted more than 400 interviews. It has also collected more than 2,800 items of information, including photograph and audiovisual imagery. To strengthen accountability, the FFM will share material with the International Criminal Court and other findings that it has collected throughout its mandate.
“Our focus was on the victims and the measures that needed to be taken in relation to the victims,” Mr. Beyani said. “So taking that line in the context of violations, in the context of the State-building project in Libya which is what it is - it’s the collapse of the State of Libya that has led to these violations and, therefore, for the International community - the Fact-Finding Mission has laid out bare facts and bare findings.”
With its mandate coming to an end next week, the Mission called on the Human Rights Council to establish a new monitoring and investigating mechanism for Libya.
-ends-
STORY: Fact-finding Mission Libya
TRT: 3:31”
SOURCE: UNTV CH
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH/NATS
ASPECT RATIO: 16:9
DATELINE: 27 March 2023 GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
SHOTLIST
1
1
1
Edited News | IOM , UNDP , UNHCR
Sudan: urgent help needed as more than 1.3 million war-displaced people begin to return home
As conflict rages on across parts of Sudan, pockets of relative safety have emerged in the past four month, spurring more than one million internally displaced Sudanese to make their way home, says the International Organization for Migration (IOM). A further 320,000 cross-border refugees have come back to Sudan since last year, mainly from Egypt and South Sudan, to assess the current situation before deciding to return to their country for good.
1
1
1
Edited News | UNRWA , WHO
Gaza: SOS messages describe people fainting from hunger; UN health worker detained
Worrying alerts from United Nations staff in Gaza who have been fainting from hunger and exhaustion over the past 48 hours have increased fears for people’s survival in the devastated enclave, UN humanitarians said on Tuesday.
1
1
1
Press Conferences | IPU , UNRWA , WHO , OCHA
Alessandra Vellucci of the United Nations Information Service (UNIS) in Geneva, chaired the hybrid briefing, attended by spokespersons and representatives of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, the World Health Organization, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, and the International Parliamentary Union.
1
1
1
Edited News | UNHCR , UNOG
Over 11.6 million refugees risk losing aid access due to funding cuts, says UNHCR
Approximately one in three refugees and other vulnerable individuals normally supported by the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) are expected to lose out from funding cuts, it said on Friday.
1
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR
Ravina Shamdasani, Spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, made the following announcement on the Office’s opening of a new mission in Bangladesh.
1
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR
“The surge in the number of Afghans forced or compelled to return to Afghanistan this year is creating a multi-layered human rights crisis requiring the urgent attention of the international community,” UN Human Rights spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani said on Friday.
1
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR , UNOG
UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk on Friday called for accountability and justice for the killings and other gross human rights violations and abuses in the southern city of Suweida.
1
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR , UNHCR
Syria: hundreds killed in Sweida, ‘widespread’ violations as civilians flee for their lives
Amid violent clashes in southern Syria’s Sweida governorate, a picture of grave human rights abuses and rising humanitarian needs is emerging by the hour, the UN said on Friday.
1
1
1
Press Conferences | UNHCR , OHCHR
Rolando Gómez of the United Nations Information Service (UNIS) in Geneva, chaired the hybrid briefing, attended by spokespersons and representatives of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR , UNOG
At the bi-weekly press briefing in Geneva the UN Human Rights Spokesperson Liz Throssell made the following statement on the latest number of civilian casualties in Ukraine.
1
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR , UNOG
The UN Human Rights Office on Tuesday called for investigations into hundreds of killings of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank by Israeli security forces and settlers, warning against ongoing forced mass displacement of the Palestinian population.