EU funds facilitated torture, sex slavery in Libya, UN finds
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The United Nations has found that the funds from the European Union have facilitated the torture of migrants and sex slavery in Libya.
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Migrants aboard a rubber boat end up in the water while others cling on to a centifloat before being rescued by a team of the Sea Watch-3, around 35 miles away from Libya, October 18, 2021 (AP)
Funding from the European Union has facilitated the commission of abuses against migrants in Libya, exposing them to systemic torture and sex slavery, a United Nations investigation said Monday.
The investigation expressed concern over the worsening human rights situation in the country of conflict-torn North Africa, warning that the European Union was helping some groups abusing migrants.
"We're not saying that the EU and its member states have committed these crimes," investigator Chaloka Beyani told reporters. "The support given has aided and abetted the commission of the crimes."
The UN Independent Fact-Finding Mission on Libya concluded that there were "grounds to believe a wide array of war crimes and crimes against humanity have been committed by state security forces and armed militia groups."
"Migrants, in particular, have been targeted and there is overwhelming evidence that they have been systematically tortured" in detention centers, it said.
Mission chairman Mohamed Auajjar said investigators found crimes against humanity had been committed against migrants in detention centers under the control of Libya's Directorate for Combating Illegal Migration (DCMI) and the country's coast guard.
Auajjar, Morocco's former justice minister, revealed that the entities in question receive technical, logistic, and financial support from the EU and its member states for the interception and return of migrants.
Furthermore, Beyani stressed that it was "clear that the DCIM has responsibility for multitudes of crimes against humanity in the detention centers that they run. The support given to them by the EU has facilitated this."
The United Nations said there were reasonable grounds to believe that migrants were suffering from sex slavery, a crime against humanity.
Mission member Tracy Robinson said they also uncovered slavery in general.
"We have found instances of enslavement of persons who have been traded to outside entities to perform various services, but also sexual slavery of women in and around detention centers," she underlined.
According to the investigators, there are stark concerns about the deprivation of liberty of Libyans and migrants alike throughout the country in what could amount to crimes against humanity.
The investigators have found various cases of "arbitrary detention, murder, torture, rape, enslavement, sexual slavery, extrajudicial killing, and enforced disappearance, confirming their widespread practice in Libya."
The country has been suffering from an escalating political crisis with a dispute between two governments. The first was headed by Fathi Bashagha, who was granted confidence last March by the Libyan House of Representatives, in Tobruk, the far east of the country.
The second is the Libyan National Unity Government, which was formed on March 10, 2021, following political agreements sponsored by the United Nations, and is headed by Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, who refuses to hand over power except through presidential and parliamentary elections.
The Libyan people have been robbed of their right to enjoy their country's resources after NATO launched a military attack on the country in 2011.
NATO's international war was concocted by Brussels and Washington, subsequently leading to the collapse of Libya as a whole.
In November, British oil giants BP and Shell decided to return to the oil-rich north African country just over a decade after the UK took part in destabilizing the nation with the 2011 military intervention.
Control of oil resources, infrastructure, and revenues has been a key driver of the long-running conflict, involving multiple foreign powers and militias.
