UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for the closure of migrant detention centres in Libya, denouncing what he called rights violations committed there. Nothing can justify the horrendous conditions under which refugees and migrants are detained in Libya, Guterres said in a report submitted to UN Security Council on Thursday. In last May, Libyan human trafficker killed 30 migrants, including 26 Bangladeshi nationals. The families of the fortune seekers have not got any compensation from anybody and the killers are not arrested yet in Libya. International Organisation of Migrants (IOM) and UN must ensure trial of the cross-boundary criminals to ensure safety and security of migrant workers, while Bangladesh government must bust out the political buttress of human traffickers and stop human trafficking in any way.
More than 2,780 people were being detained as of July 31 in centers across Libya. Twenty-two per cent of the detainees were children. The torture centers are the haven for criminals who commit torture, enforced disappearances, and sexual and gender-based violence. Many migrants and refugees have been shot at when they attempted to escape, resulting in injuries and deaths. Since the downfall of Muammar Gaddafi, overthrown and killed in a 2011 NATO-backed uprising, Libya has been a key gateway for Africans trying to reach Europe for years, and about 140,000 migrants and refugees were residing in Tripoli before the fighting broke out last April.
In Dhaka, police in June arrested 52 suspected human traffickers in connection with 26 human trafficking-related cases filed with various police stations, soon after 26 Bangladeshi migrant workers were killed in Libya. Intelligence in Dhaka identified over a dozen of expatriate Bangladeshis in Libyan cities active behind the trafficking of fellow countrymen to Benghazi using the airports of Alexandria in Egypt and Tunisia in support from Khalifa Haftar-backed militia in the civil-war torn African country of Libya. Dhaka must stop human trafficking by nabbing bureaucrats, politicians and traffickers who work co-coordinately in the illicit business, while UN must keep on the pressure on the Libyan government to bust the trafficking.
