Migrants in Libya share their stories of violence, illegal detention, rape, and torture in a report released Thursday by Oxfam, Borderline Sicilia, and the Italian non-profit Doctors for Human Rights (MEDU).
The report "The Inferno Beyond the Sea" was released on the occasion of the summit of European interior ministers in Tallinn and the conference in Rome titled "Solidarity and Security", in which the Italian foreign minister and foreign ministers from African migrant transit countries have gathered to discuss migrant flows.
According to the report, hundreds of people who have arrived in Sicily over the past 12 months told stories of having been beaten, abused, sold, and illegally arrested in Libya. "Eighty-four percent of those interviewed said they had been subjected to inhumane treatment including brutal violence and torture, 74 percent said they had witnessed a murder or torture of a travel companion, 80 percent said they had been subjected to water and food deprivation, and 70 percent said they had been imprisoned in official or unofficial detention centres".
Witness accounts
"I was arrested by an armed gang while I was walking on the road to Tripoli," said H.R., a 30-year-old migrant from Morocco. "They took me to an underground prison and told me to ask a ransom from my family. They beat me and cut me several times with a knife. They regularly raped the men," he said.
One day a group of soldiers came into our home. They beat me and I was raped in front of my brother and my daughter,
said K.M., a 27-year-old woman from the Ivory Coast.
"The stories of the migrants that we've been helping for a year with the Open Europe project are giving us an unacceptable insight into what is happening on the other side of the Mediterranean," said Elisa Bacciotti, campaign director for Oxfam Italy. "Faced with this situation, we must ask ourselves where Europe's sense of humanity has gone," she said.
Oxfam, Borderline Sicilia, and MEDU are calling for an immediate revocation of the agreement between Italy and Libya, a revision of the human rights protection agreements with countries of transit, and the strengthening of legal immigration channels to Europe.