Migrants detained in slave conditions in Libyan detention centers (Ansa)

Kidnapped by the Libyan police who threaten the kidnapped transferers in the Bani Walid camp if their relatives do not pay. Once again the blackmail comes via social media to the relatives in Europe and in Israel. The umpteenth odyssey of a group of young refugees from the Horn of Africa, mostly Eritreans, then Somalis and Ethiopians, begins on 3 February. The 72 sub-Saharan have just been freed by Eritrean traffickers who had brought them from Sudan, kidnapped them and demanded ransoms of about 5,000 dollars. The group wandered around Tripoli without knowing where to go and ended up in a police raid in the neighborhood of Gergarish. But the security cells are few and 35 are sent to the Tagiura detention center while another 10 have been freed, after they were seen to seize the cell phones and the money they had from the policemen. The other 27 are locked up in the security cells of the Gergarish police command that threatens to deport them in the worst Libyan hell, according to the testimonies of those who came out and those in prison.

In Bani Walid, the prisoners are subjected to the most brutal torture by the guards for racial and religious hatred and forcing relatives to pay ransoms. Photos of people threatened with firearms or chained are posted on Facebook. Terrified, the inmates of Gergarish themselves got in touch with relatives all over Europe and in Israel thanks to the only cell phone they managed to hide.

In Italy the testimony was collected by the refugee group of the Democratic Eritrean Coordination. "To release us - they told the Italians - the guards demand $ 500 from each of us: if we can not pay, they will transfer us to Bani Walid."