The International Rescue Committee (IRC) called on the Libyan government on Wednesday to free thousands of migrants and asylum seekers staying in the country's detention centers, following a controversial government operation to curb illegal migration
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 06th October, 2021) The International Rescue Committee (IRC) called on the Libyan government on Wednesday to free thousands of migrants and asylum seekers staying in the country's detention centers, following a controversial government operation to curb illegal migration.
"We urge the authorities to immediately release the most vulnerable, particularly women and children; and pending the release of all those arbitrarily detained, we request that safe and unimpeded access is guaranteed for humanitarian actors providing lifesaving assistance to detained populations," the IRC said in a statement.
The country's detention centers have become overcrowded, with the country's largest facility of Al Mabani currently hosting 4,000 people, four times more than capacity, the NGO said. The IRC employees visited several detention centers and reported poor living conditions due to overcrowding, poor sanitation, lack of essential resources, including clean water and food.
Apart from detainees, there are also migrants living in hiding in different parts of Tripoli in fear of arrests, and they also need water, food, and medicine, but cannot be reached by humanitarian agencies due to ongoing raids, the IRC noted.
Over the past few days, the Libyan authorities have rounded up and sent more than 5,000 migrants to detention facilities, in what they described was a necessary measure to curb illegal migration and drug trafficking. During the operation, numerous cases of arbitrary arrests of vulnerable people, including women and children, and excessive violence have been reported. One person was allegedly killed, numerous people were injured, and private property was damaged by the Libyan security forces in the raids.
