Libya grapples with migration crisis

Sunday, 26 April 2015

Libyan militias have reportedly targeted migrants with racist attacks, robberies, torture, and kidnappings [Rebecca Murray/Al Jazeera]

Al Jazeera

Tesru, a 23-year-old Eritrean, bakes in the sun while he waits in line for a doctor to treat his protruding broken ribs at a detention centre in Misrata.

Tesru had forked out $1,600 to a trafficker to flee his repressive country and reach Libya's coast. He was arrested a month ago by police, whom he said beat and injured him with the back of a gun. His story is just one of many from asylum seekers in this detention facility who have not spoken to the UN or an embassy official.

Here, hundreds of men, women and children take turns sleeping while sitting up in the cramped and fetid space, and have to share four working toilets. They are only allowed out for head counts and medical visits because the guards say they are afraid they would scale the walls and escape.

"Our biggest concerns are the numbers of people, the boats and the desert," Dr Hussein Al-Sharif told Al Jazeera. "The international community needs to pay attention."

Last week, after hundreds of migrants drowned in the Mediterranean Sea, European leaders scrambled to bulk up their maritime patrols and explore controversial measures to strike at the wide-ranging, lucrative trafficking networks operating inside Libya.