Page 10 - aruba-today-20190701

A10 WORLD NEWS
Monday 1 July 2019
Migrants stranded in Libya endure sewage, maggots, disease

it described as the "dire"
situation of refugees and
migrants stranded in Libya.
It said it has repeatedly de-
nounced inhumane condi-
tions in detention centers
and demanded their clo-
sure.
Responding to questions
from the AP, the EU said a
joint task force with the Af-
rican Union and the United
Nations is seeking safer
alternatives for migrants
outside Libya, including by
stepping up evacuations
and legal resettlement.
Grandi said UNHCR has suc-
ceeded in sending 4,000

In this May 21, 2019 photo provided by an African migrant, hundreds of migrants stage a protest in a detention center in the town migrants to Niger to await
of Zintan, western Libya, appealing for help from the United Nations. resettlement, while the In-
Associated Press ternational Organization
for Migration has helped
By MAGGIE MICHAEL side by side with adults. litias who run the facility 2011, when the North Afri- some 35,000 return to their
CAIRO (AP) — For hundreds "We need emergency have denied their workers can nation was thrown into home countries.
of African migrants, dreams evacuation from Zintan," access to all parts of it. chaos, armed militias prolif- But for those in Zintan, little
of a new life in Europe have one told the AP. "We suf- UNHCR chief Filippo Gran- erated and central author- has changed. The facil-
instead ended in a deten- fer physically, mentally and di told the AP that after ity fell apart. ity, originally a youth sum-
tion center in the remote emotionally." photos from inside the site Currently, a U.N.-aligned mer camp, has such a bad
desert of war-torn Libya, Photos and videos taken emerged last month, the but weak administration in reputation that migrants
where they say they have by migrants showed heaps agency intervened and Tripoli oversees the west, in other detention centers
been held for months amid of garbage in the hangar, evacuated 96 migrants where Zintan is located, caught in the crossfire of
raw sewage, piles of gar- parts of the center flooded from a separate building but much of its powers are fighting between Libya's
bage, disease, maggots with sewage and plates of at the facility where it had in the hands of militias. East- warring factions refuse to
and barely enough food to food crawling with mag- access. They were sent to ern Libya is controlled by a be sent there.
survive. gots. The hangar had only the one U.N.-run center for rival government aligned "They prefer to die under
Their plight, detailed in in- four toilets, along with migrants in Tripoli. with the self-styled Libyan bombs and not go through
terviews with The Associat- buckets for detainees to "It is not because of lack of National Army led by Field the slow death in Zintan,"
ed Press and social media urinate in. will or not even because of Marshal Khalifa Hifter, who said Giulia Tranchina, a
images leaked last month, Migrants said they were not lack of resources," Grandi in April launched an offen- human rights lawyer from
brings new attention to the allowed out to see the sun, said. "Access in Libya is the sive on Tripoli. the UK-based Wilsons So-
waves of migrants from and the head of the cen- fundamental obstacle to Some human rights advo- licitors who has been in di-
across Africa who have ter would often deprive saving more lives." cates blame the European rect contact with migrants
flowed into Libya in recent them of food and water Col. Nasser Nakoua, part Union for the migrant cri- trapped in Zintan and other
years seeking passage for days as a form of pun- of the militias who run the sis because it has funded places.
across the Mediterranean ishment. Those who were detention center in Zintan, Libya's coast guard to stop An official with Interna-
to Europe — and the high- given food got only a small denied there was any lack the crossers at sea. That ef- tional Medical Corps said
ly effective efforts to stop plate of pasta or couscous of access to the facility. fort has been highly effec- in memos obtained by AP
them in their tracks. each day and had to share "Those saying that they tive, with the number of that it had established a
"Our life is worse and terri- water that a few detain- have no access are just ly- people entering the EU via clinic at a smaller building
ble from day to day," wrote ees were allowed to fetch ing. The doors are open, the central Mediterranean at the center and was pro-
an Eritrean migrant who is once a day in buckets. and we want the agencies cut from 180,000 in 2016 to viding health care. He said
among 700 held in the de- Internal memos and emails to come and help or just 23,400 last year and just 880 reports of lack of food and
tention center run by one obtained by the AP show shut the place down, be- in the first four months of this water were untrue, though
of Libya's militias out of a disagreement among aid cause there is severe short- year, according to the EU quality was poor, and that
complex dominated by a agencies over conditions age in everything," he told border agency Frontex. guards sometimes withheld
hangar near the western at the center, with one the AP by phone. At least 6,000 migrants from water as punishment.
town of Zintan. nonprofit working on behalf He blamed the govern- such nations as Eritrea, He acknowledged that his
Others who spoke on condi- of the United Nations deny- ment, which is nominally Ethiopia, Somalia and Su- group could not get into
tion of anonymity because ing there was lack of food, in control of the facility, for dan are locked in dozens the hangar where most of
they feared retribution said even as it acknowledged it failing to fund its opera- of detention facilities run by the migrants were held un-
in texts to the AP that at had not been able to see tions. "We received nothing militias accused of torture til last month, and that it
least 22 migrants have died most of the migrants held from Department for Com- and other human rights was up to guards to bring
since September — a figure there. bating Illegal Migration," he abuses. And that comes af- out detainees for medical
confirmed by United Na- Migrants in the Zintan cen- said, referring to the body ter often-arduous journeys treatment.
tions and Doctors Without ter and their advocates in charge of the facilities, at the mercy of traffickers But Doctors Without Bor-
Borders aid workers — and accused U.N. aid agencies "not a single penny." who are known to abuse ders, an aid agency that
that at least 100 migrants of being slow to respond or Libya became a major migrants and hold them for did manage to visit the de-
were sick with disease, forgetting them altogether. crossing point for migrants ransom money from fami- tention facility, said it found
mainly tuberculosis. Some But the U.N refugee agen- to Europe after the ouster lies back home. several malnourished mi-
migrants said the center in- cy, or UNHCR, disputes and killing of longtime dic- The EU said in a statement grants and confirmed the
cludes 100 minors who live that, saying the Libyan mi- tator Moammar Gadhafi in that it is not ignoring what tuberculosis outbreak.q