Migrants sold into slavery in Libya tell of 'total hell'

Survivors of slave auctions in Libya have described a "total hell" that they wouldn't wish on their "worst enemy" as global outrage grows over footage showing migrants being sold off in the war-torn country.

"We were slaves," said Moussa Sanogo, a migrant who flew back to Ivory Coast from Libya this week after surviving regular beatings and forced labour in the fields.

"For the Arabs (Libyan jailers), black-skinned men are nothing but animals -- animals were treated better," said Sanogo, who spent more than four months in Libya trying to get to Italy by boat.

The North African country has long been a major transit hub for migrants trying to reach Europe.

He was just one of those who returned home with stories similar to those aired last week by US TV network CNN, which showed an apparent slave auction where black men were presented to North African buyers as potential farmhands and sold off for as little as $400 (340 euros).

"It was total hell in Libya," said Maxime Ndong, one of 250 migrants flown back to Cameroon on Tuesday night.

"There is a trade in black people there. People who want slaves... come to buy them," he told AFP.

"If you resist, they shoot at you. There have been deaths," said Ndong, who spent eight months in Libya.

The Cameroonians flew back to Yaounde on Tuesday aboard a plane charted by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) as part of a project to return and reintegrate some 850 people.

Sanogo, 22, was one of about 600 Ivory Coast migrants that were returning from Libya with IOM's support. Around 150 people landed in the capital Abidjan on Monday with the rest to be brought home during the week.

Sanogo described Libya as an anarchic country preyed on by bandits where the forces of law and order were involved in human trafficking.

"At one point, we were caught by people who said they were police," he said.

"The police then sold me for 500 dinars (310 euros, $365) to a man who made me work in a tomato field for a month. You have to work."

Sanogo fled across the desert to Niger where he was imprisoned again before finally escaping to Tunisia.

Then a people smuggler promising a path to Europe convinced him to return to Libya.

"We were captured and locked in a small room with 60 other people," and were "not able to wash," he said.

"When the Arabs entered they wore masks due to the smell," he said, shaking his head at the memory.

"They are buying you. You're there, you have been arrested, you see they are judging your price like merchandise. They bought you and you're going to work... like a slave," he said.

"They hit you all the time -- especially if you're big like me -- until the blood flows, with sticks, metal, the butt of a gun.

"For food, you are given a piece of bread and a piece of cheese, that's all... I'm happy to be back," he said.

"I would not wish it on my enemy."

Another migrant, Seydou Sanogo from Abidjan, said: "You would have to see what we lived through to believe it".

But not everyone wanted to leave Libya. One woman with an 18-month-old baby said she did not want to return to Ivory Coast.

"We were waiting for the boat. We were almost there," said the woman, who did not give her name.

The slave auction footage has triggered an outcry across Africa, bringing to public consciousness a situation that has previously been condemned by many non-governmental groups and observers.

Music and football stars have expressed their outrage at the revelations, including Ivorian reggae singers Alpha Blondy and Tiken Jah Fakoly, as well as footballer Didier Drogba.

"It is a double indignation, a cry from the heart: I am shocked to see the children of Africa die... trying to find a better tomorrow," said A'Salfo, lead singer of the group Magic System.

"A humiliation for Africa."

The United Nations said the slavery auctions should be investigated as possible crimes against humanity, and the issue will be on agenda at an African Union-EU summit on November 29 to 30 in Abidjan.

AFP

Libya arrests 400 'illegal immigrants'

      
TRIPOLI  Libyan authorities on Monday said its forces had prevented more than 400 Africans including Nigerians from illegally emigrating to Italy when it intercepted a boat off the coast of the North African country.
 A young Nigerian, Emmanuel, said the Libyan officials had taken all their documents.
"They took everything... money, passport, phones. They told us 'you don't need all this in Europe'," he said, accusing the former rebels of "organising this set-up."
 Forty-year-old Rania, an Ethiopian, said she had been fooled for the third time in a row.
"Each time one takes the boat, a patrol comes to stop and escorts us to the port," she said.
 "You see the captain (of the boat) is still there," she said pointing to a Libyan the boat at the Tripoli docks.
 She said it was Libyans who offered to take them to Europe.
 "They hid us for two months on a farm in Tajura (an eastern suburb of Tripoli) and each time they told us we must wait as the weather was too bad to go to the sea," she said.
"Last night they asked us to board and we had not spent more than two hours at sea when police boats surrounded us and escorted us to the port. I want to leave to Europe. I do not know where they plan to take us," she said as a Libyan official pressed her to board a bus chartered by the authorities.

They said Monday's incident was a set-up.
 Many of the immigrants said they had become victims of a fraud planned by Libyans to swindle them after they had each paid people smugglers between 1,000 and 1,500 dollars.
 In the port of Tripoli some 420 immigrants were being guarded by former rebels who toppled Gadafi as well as being monitored by interior ministry officials, according to report.
Among them were Ethiopians, Ghanaians, Ivorians and Nigerians.
According to General Joma al-Meshri, a group of former rebels and officers intercepted the boat early on Monday 10 miles off the coast of Tripoli.
A commander of the ex-rebels, Khaled al-Bassir, said they had received information about the vessel's departure, and that three patrol boats had set off to intercept it.

 For several years, Libya has been a transit country for hundreds of thousands of African immigrants trying to reach Europe in search of a better life.

Asari-Dokubo claim ties with 'martyr' Gaddafi

   
LAGOS Asari-Dokubo, Nigerian ex-militant leader who claims to have lived in Libya and to have had links with Muamer Gaddafii called him a "martyr" on Friday and vowed that his killing would be avenged.
"Gaddafii spilled his blood as a martyr to rekindle the fire of revolution all over the world," Mujahid Asari-Dokuboi, head of the Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force, said. "Those who murdered him will not go scot-free."
 There have been reports that Asari, who previously led a violent militancy in Nigeria's oil-producing Niger Delta region, received military training in Libya, but he was vague on the details of his stay there.
 Kadhafi was accused of using Libya's oil wealth to fund and arm rebel groups across Africa.
"Even if I got training in Libya, what is wrong with getting training in Libya?" said Asari, a 48-year-old who was born into a Christian family but who converted to Islam in 1988.
He said he spent time in Libya in 1990 and 1991.
"I was invited by the Libyan government and given a scholarship to go study Islam," he said.
"When I arrived in Libya, they thought that I had revolutionary ideas, so I became close to the leadership and I started talking to them."
Asari said he met other foreigners with similar ideas while in Libya.
 He said he returned and held talks with Gaddafi in early 2010, and claimed he was given $100,000 during that trip. He said however that his movement was not given significant financial support by Gaddafi over the years."The people of the world will rise up against this," he said of Gaddafii's death.
"The time is coming and they will regret this murder they committed against the people."
Asari argued that Libya under Gaddafi had the "highest literacy rate and the best health care in the whole of Africa. As a foreigner, I saw with my eyes."
Asari's group was involved in violence in Nigeria particularly in the early part of last decade.
He was arrested in 2005 on treason charges after he threatened to relaunch his armed campaign for an independent republic in the Niger Delta, but was released in 2007.
Asari says that his movement is now on "sabbatical" since a native of the Niger Delta, Goodluck Jonathan, has been elected president of the country, which is Africa's most populous nation and its largest oil producer.

1200 African migrants evacuated from Libya

More than 1,200 African migrants who have been stuck in the southern Libyan desert town of Sabha for weeks in dire conditions have been evacuated and are on their way to Chad, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Monday. The group, half of whom are Chadian, were among up to 3,000 migrants stranded in Sabha due to fighting, the agency said.
Interim government forces overthrew forces loyal to deposed leader Muammar Gaddafi there nearly two weeks ago.
"A convoy of 15 trucks with 1,206 migrants left Sabha on Sunday for Gatroun and is now en route to Chad," IOM spokeswoman Jemini Pandya said.
"This is the first really big group. We have negotiated safe passage for them," she added.
The sub-Saharan migrants, who feared being caught in the crossfire in Sabha, had also been victims of harassment and discrimination, sometimes accused of being foreign mercenaries backing loyalist forces, according to the Geneva-based agency. Those evacuated include a large number from Nigeria, as well as migrants from nine other countries -- Burkina Faso, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gambia, Mali, Morocco, Senegal, Somalia and Sudan, she said. Women and children are among the group. The migrants will be taken to Zouarke, along the Nigerian-Chadian border, a trip that will take a week before going to Faya-Largeau in Chad. It is not possible to go directly from Libya into Chad as the border area is heavily mined, the spokeswoman said.
Non-Chadian migrants will be brought to their home countries or their intended final destinations.
"They had been caught in the middle of this conflict for control of Sabha. The fighting had prevented us from getting supplies into our centre in the town and in getting the migrants out," said IOM Chief of Mission in Chad, Qasim Sufi. "The migrants are extremely relieved that they will now be able to get home and put this experience behind them," he said. At least several hundred more migrants still in Sabha are seeking evacuation, but hundreds of Somalis appear to be moving north on their own, possibly heading for Tunisia, Pandya said. The operation is financed by the European Community's Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection Office (ECHO), as well as the U.S. and German governments, the IOM said.

Nigerian migrants hope Libyan crisis will ease path to Europe

A group of African migrants have put their destinies to fate with the hope to cross to Europe hoping the chaos in Libya will ease their flight to the boats awaiting them on the Mediterranean.
Take the case of this Nigerians who are determined against the odds to make it to Europe in the face of torture and execution of blacks on suspicion of fighting as mercenaries alongside Muammar Gaddafi's forces.

But for them, the risks from gunmen are an acceptable alternative to being turned back by a border patrol.
"They say blacks are being killed as suspected Gaddafi fighters, but I say we all have a destiny," said Sule, a 25-year-old Nigerian migrant who did not want to give his last name.
"I see this war as an opportunity that I cannot let pass if I want to make it to Europe."
Lured by the seductive mirage of a better life in the West, tens of thousands of Africans trek every year across deserts or risk perilous sea crossings in try to slip illegally into Europe via Spain or Italy.
But for Sule and his companions -- and the dozens of others arriving in northern Niger each day -- that gamble means passing through what may be the most dangerous place in the world right now for an African.
Refugee camps within Libya and sprouting along its land borders contain thousands of fleeing Africans telling tales of horror at the hands of rebel fighters suspicious they are pro-Gaddafi mercenaries. Identity cards of nationals from Chad, Niger, Mali, Sudan and other African states have been found on the bodies of gunmen who anti-Gaddafi fighters say were paid to confront them. "We are risking our lives but we have been assured by our guide that we'll be alright between here and the Libyan border.
The rest is our affair," Sule said.
"If things become dangerous, we can always head to a refugee camp," said Obasi, one of Sule's companions.
Sule's group travelled 700 km from their homes in Kano, to Agadez, a city in Niger's northern desert just below the Air mountain range.
In this bustling town, once a popular destination for European tourists seeking a taste of the Sahara before a Tuareg uprising in 2007 and a string of Al Qaeda-linked kidnappings made it a no-go zone,
Sule's group waits for the signal to complete the 3,000 km journey north. "The smuggler said he'll bring us to Libya via the mountain trails through Agadez. There are others coming and even if we become impatient, the timing is his responsibility. There are preparations to complete and it is important that we have enough water," said Serin, one of Sule's companions.
Sule's group paid 300,000 CFA francs ($625) each to be smuggled to the Libyan border, about double what they would have paid before the war, they said.
They said they had been encouraged to try the route when Gaddafi threatened Europe with a deluge of illegal immigration early on in the uprising against him.
Italy's government said last month it has proof Gaddafi planned to turn its tiny island of Lampedusa, off the southern coast of Siciliy, into an "inferno" by sending thousands of desperate African migrants there. A deal between Gaddafi and Italy to send migrants back before they entered Italian waters had curbed the flow of migrants until the Libyan uprising brought strict border controls.
Abdul Rachid is a driver in Agadez, paid to run the smuggling routes to Libya's border with a cargo of humans.
He said migrants were given choices between riding in the back of a powerful 4X4 pickup truck -- the "fast and comfortable option" but more expensive -- or being packed into a larger, slower truck.
"If you take a truck you will be 50 people or 60 people, packed in like sardines. It takes at least 10 days if all goes well," he said.

Nigerian and Ghanian migrants targeted by rebels in Libya

A Nigerian migrant Godspower Wilfred,living in Libya has taken

shelter in a makeshift camp in the south of Tripoli. He is afraid for
his life; not only is he in the middle of a deadly and bloody conflict,
Wilfred is a target to Libyan rebel forces.
"If you go out in the streets, people will hold you and say you are fighting for Gaddafi. I am not a fighter," Wilfred said.

He is one of the many migrants from sub-saharan Africa suspected for being pro-Gaddafi forces and hunted down as such.
During his reign, embattled Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi had employed nationals from other African countries as part of a special protection forces.
Now the special forces are left without the protection of Gaddafi
and with the battle taking off in Tripoli, the migrants say "skin
colour alone is enough to mark them out as Gaddafi supporters."
Hassan Abdallah, a migrant from Ghana, finds himself in much the same situation as his Nigerian counterpart, Wilfred.
"Some people are saying that it's the blacks who co-operated with Libyan
soldiers to shoot them or whatever," Abdallah said.
"But we are not among them," he added.
According to reports, the bodies of at least 20 black African men were found outside Gaddafi's compound after rebels captured Tripoli, with their hands tied and a gun shot wound to the head.
With the hunt still on, Abdallah and Wilfred, alongside about 200 migrants, mostly from Nigeria and Ghana, make do with the
harsh conditions of their refugee camp in the south of Tripoli.

Italy probes refugee sacrifice claim

Italy opened an inquiry on Wednesday into allegations by a refugee fleeing Libya that some people on the boat he arrived on threw other refugees into the sea as a human sacrifice during a storm.
The 16-year-old Ghanaian spoke to a volunteer from the charity Save the Children after arriving on the island of Lampedusa earlier this month and his disturbing allegations against a group of Nigerians were reported to police.
"As soon as we received the testimony we opened an investigation as required," the local chief prosecutor, Renato Di Natale, said.
Emanuela Salvatori from Save the Children, said: "We can confirm that we collected the testimony from this minor and that an investigation is underway."
"It was like a rite of sacrifice," La Stampa quoted him as saying, adding: "The captain pointed them out and the others threw them overboard."
The Ghanaian, who is now in a refugee centre in Italy, said his brother was one of the victims and also spoke of women being raped on the boat.
The news reports said other refugees had confirmed the Ghanaian's story.
Thousands of refugees fleeing Libya - almost all of them migrant workers from sub-Saharan Africa and Asia - have been arriving in Italy in recent weeks as the conflict in North Africa has escalated.

Nigerians amongst hundreds of refugees just landed in Italy

A large contingent of 251 African refugees fleeing Libya arrived in Sicily on Tuesday- mostly Erireans and Nigerians; two three-year-old girls and 15 women, one of whom has had to be hospitalised with an abdominal injury,
while 116 more arrived in Malta on a boat that also carried the body of a 29-year-old woman who died during the voyage.
The refugees arriving Malta was carrying mostly Chadians and Somalis, the boat was intercepted by Maltese coast guards who received an alert from an Italian fishing boat that spotted the 50-foot (15-metre) wooden boat late Monday.
The refugees that arrived in Sicily which included Nigerians have been transferred to a temporary structure set up at Porto Empedocle in the south of the island.
A spokesman for the Maltese army said coast guards saw the refugees burning their clothes to attract the attention of passing vessels.
The refugees on the boat that arrived in Malta on Tuesday included 94 men, 18 women, a three-year-old boy and three babies. It has not yet been established how the woman on board died, the spokesman said.

Malta said it had asked Italian authorities to help with the rescue but was refused because they said the boat was 45 nautical miles from Malta and 47 nautical miles from the island of Lampedusa -- Italy's southernmost point.
Lampedusa last week refused to grant permission to enter its waters to a Maltese patrol boat which had rescued some migrants close to the island, which has been swamped with thousands of immigrants and refugees in recent weeks.
More than 1,000 people fleeing Libya have arrived in Malta in recent days.