Hundreds of refugees and asylum seekers, including women and children, were rounded up outside the former UNHCR Community Development Center in Tripoli early on Monday morning and taken to detention centers. Now aid groups are reporting serious violence and injuries took place too.
A report published by the Migrantes Foundation of the Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI) underscored a sharp rise in the detention of migrants in Libyan centers this year. Official centers alone were holding some 10,000 in early October, compared with about 1,100 in January, the report stated.
Libya has been forcibly expelling groups of migrants, transporting them to the border and leaving them stranded there, the UN human rights office says. It has called on Libya to stop the practice immediately.
Greek border guards reportedly rounded up a group of migrants, including a Frontex interpreter, and illegally pushed the group into Turkey after beating them and stripping them of their belongings.
Libya's coast guard has threatened to hijack the privately-run Sea-Watch 4 rescue vessel over the weekend. The vessel reportedly was in international waters at the time of the incident.
The war in Syria is still raging, making the country too unsafe for refugees to return, according to UN expert Paulo Pinheiro. He also warned that the winter cold and the coronavirus pose a dire thread to many Syrians.
The United States and the United Nations have imposed sanctions on a man accused of running a migrant detention center in Libya where "horrific abuses" were carried out.
The pontiff has pleaded countries to offer migrants rescued from the Mediterranean safe disembarkation at ports, alternatives to detention, and access to asylum.
An Italian court has sentenced a captain to a year in prison for handing migrants his ship's crew rescued over to the Libyan coast guard in 2018. The incident had sparked heated debate in Italy.
Various UN agencies have denounced violence against migrants in Libya after security forces shot dead at least half a dozen asylum seekers in recent days.
Libyan authorities have returned more than fifty Egyptians who had tried to reach Europe by boat. Police in Libya also arrested two men suspected of human trafficking.
The organization Doctors for Human Rights (MEDU) has denounced the atrocities endured by migrants inside detention centers in Libya, citing the stories recently reported by five migrants in Ragusa, Sicily.