The security authorities in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, dismantled a “gang formation” that they said was “involved in smuggling irregular migrants from neighboring African countries across the border and trafficking them,” after widespread clashes with its members in the middle of the southern desert.
There are many announcements in Libya of the arrest of “gang formations” that practice smuggling irregular migrants across the vast borders with neighboring countries, trafficking them or exploiting them in forced labor, and bargaining with their families to pay ransom in exchange for their release.
Part of the operation to arrest irregular migrants in the southern Libyan desert (444th Combat Brigade)
The 444th Fighting Brigade said, on Monday evening, that its members arrested “a gang formation, after direct clashes with its members in the middle of the vast Libyan desert, which resulted in the targeting and burning of a truck, the seizure of 6 vehicles, and the arrest of all smugglers who were in it.”
The “444th Fighting Brigade” is a military force affiliated with the Interim National Unity Government headed by Abdul Hamid Al-Dabaiba, and is stationed in the capital. He explained, in a statement, that he arrested 120 illegal immigrants from Sudan, Niger, Chad, Ethiopia and Eritrea, “after finding them lost in the middle of the Libyan desert.”
The Anti-Illegal Immigration Service in Tripoli deported 600 Egyptian irregular migrants by land, according to the “voluntary return” program launched by the United Nations to alleviate the overcrowding of thousands of migrants in shelter centers in Libya.
Egyptians who authorities in western Libya say entered the country illegally (Anti-Illegal Immigration Agency)
According to data from the International Organization for Migration, Libya hosts 175,132 migrants from Niger (25 percent of the total migrant population), another 165,924 of Egyptian nationality (24 percent), in addition to 123,607 migrants from Chad (18 percent), and another 30,095 from Nigeria ( 4 percent), 14,783 from Ghana (2 percent), and 12,581 from Mali (2 percent).
According to Libyan human rights activists, the current year is one of the most intensive years in carrying out deportations, land and air deportations, and humanitarian evacuation of irregular migrants and asylum seekers from Libya, which effectively contributes to reducing the amount of overcrowding in shelter centers.
The International Organization for Migration said on Monday that Coast Guard authorities returned 662 irregular migrants from the Mediterranean Sea from November 12 to 18, in a new operation facing “severe criticism” in human rights circles in Libya.
Human rights associations and international organizations justify their refusal to return migrants “because of the violations they are subjected to in shelter centers, after being placed in crowded places that lack the basics of a decent life.”
