Brussels, 11/10/2012 (Agence Europe) - One year after the end of the war in Libya, foreign migrants are still being treated just as badly and are even hunted down by former rebel groups and militia, it is stated by the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH). A FIDH report on the matter was published on Thursday 11 October.
Violations noted include the fact that migrants are hunted down by militia then locked up in improvised detention centres managed by the very same militia, where they are subjected to inhuman and degrading conditions, the report states.
In today's Libya, even more than in Gaddafi's Libya, the rights of migrants, asylum seekers and refugees, and especially those of sub-Saharan African origin, are severely flouted Before the war, the report states, the number of foreign workers who contributed to making the economy turn was between 1.5 and 2.5 million for a Libyan population by way of 6.4 million.
Thirty-three members of the Greens/EFA Group, the ALDE, the GUE/NGL and the S&D have together published an article, in which they state that the EU and its member states hardly seem to be concerned about the fate of these people and even seems to be persisting in a policy that is in favour of closing its borders and funding detention centres on the other side of the Mediterranean Sea. Member states, they say, must stop putting their head in the sand and propose resettlement on their soil to migrants in real need of protection. (SP/transl.jl)