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.

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Radio Dalsan

Somalis are very good at nicknaming things and even people. The name Magafe literally means the one who never misses in Somali and that is what Somalis use to describe a Libyan warlord who has made a business out of kidnapping poor immigrants heading to Europe via the Sahara desert.

He waylays for immigrants in southern Libyan and has over the years built a network of freelancers said to be mostly Tuareg militias across the Libyan Desert snatching any immigrant crossing the Libyan border.

He then goes to illegally detain the immigran’ts until when they pay off a ransom to buy their freedom. Talk of slavery in the 21st century!

After he is paid a ransom, at least he is descent enough to take the immigrant’s across the desert to the coastline and hand them over to other human traffickers who charge them a certain amount of money to take them across the Mediterranean Sea to Europe via Italy.

Mr Magafe’s kidnapping business has grown so huge that it is said that he has a fleet of 4×4 vehicles, horses and even camels specifically bought to patrol the expansive Libyan Desert in search of immigrants.

He commands dozens of battle hardened-Tuareg militias who fought for the Libyan President Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and who are inhabitants of the desert themselves giving him an edge over the immigrants as his foot soldiers know every hiding place in the desert including the entire oasis where travellers rest during the hot humid day, which is the only location you can find a well or water source which in the desert means survival or death.

As a result of Mr. Magafe’s cruelty on the immigrants, it is believed hundreds if not thousands have died in Libya either in the hands of Magafe himself from torture and at times even assassinations.

If you thought that is cruel enough of Mr. Magafe wait until you hear what he does to beautiful immigrant women.

Survivors say any beautiful woman caught by Mr. Magafe naturally becomes his wife until when her family buys her off like a slave. His libido must be abnormally high since it is said that he sleeps with more than 4 or 5 women a day at times during the high season when there are many immigrants crossing the Libyan desert on their way to Europe.

His militias are said to also rape women at will or even sodomize young boys at will. The cruelty meted on the poor immigrants is simply mindboggling.

I started hearing about Mr. Magafe sometimes last year but I first thought he was simply an amateur trying to eke out a living in chaotic Libya. But then his name started going round Somalis and you’d hear stories of how Mr. Magafe has kidnapped Somali immigrants whom then he forces to call their relatives and ask for ransom to release his captives.

There is no picture or video available to show this man called Magafe, at least not any I know of or heard of leaving this sad story to remain a harrowing mystery.

This week one of my colleagues received a call from his brother who claims to have been kidnapped by Mr. Magafe and urging the brother to pay $3000 or else he will be killed

This bad news has understandably disturbed my friend. They have met as a family and have been forced to contribute money to send to Mr. Magafe.

I tried to speak to Mr. Magafe in vain, as he could not speak English. He could only speak his Libyan Arabic language, but from his horse voice I can imagine what kind of a face he was wearing, it must be a very angry face of a human slave trader in the 21st century.

If you have any information about Mr. Magafe, including pictures or videe please send to libyamagafe@gmail.com

We are trying to collect as much information and evidence as possible to bring Mr. Magafe on trial for his crimes against humanity.

Change starts with you and me. Let us save humanity.

By Mohamud Hassan

Leverage Media

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(c)courtesy of Youtube

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Kenyan officials say the country is closing its borders to travellers from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone in response to the deadly Ebola outbreak.

Kenya's health secretary said Kenyans and medical workers flying in from those states would still be allowed in.

Kenyan Airways says it will stop flights to Liberia and Sierra Leone when the ban comes in on Wednesday.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) says Kenya is at "high risk" from Ebola because it is a major transport hub.

The epidemic began in Guinea in February and has since spread to Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria.

The cases had involved a Liberian national and two Nigerians who had recently travelled to Kenya as well as a Zimbabwean.

Kenyan Airways said it had decided to cancel flights to Liberia and Sierra Leone's capitals after advice from Kenya's government.

It said all passengers booked on the suspended flights would get a full refund.

The company said its flights to Nigeria were not affected by the suspension.

'Strict checks'

Announcing the government's decision, Kenyan Health Minister James Macharia said it was "in the interest of public health".

He warned that Kenyans and health workers who had returned from the three west African states would face "strict checks" and would be quarantined if necessary.

On Friday, medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said the outbreak would take at least six months to bring under control.

MSF President Joanne Liu said the situation was "deteriorating faster, and moving faster, than we can respond to".

The WHO also admitted that the scale of the outbreak appeared to be "vastly underestimated" and said "extraordinary measures" were needed to contain it.

Ebola is transmitted by direct contact with the body fluids of a person who is infected.

Initial flu-like symptoms can lead to external haemorrhaging from areas such as eyes and gums, and internal bleeding which can lead to organ failure.

The WHO says the risk of transmission of Ebola during air travel remains low.

On Friday, the death toll rose to 1,145 after the WHO said 76 new deaths had been reported in the two days to 13 August. There have been 2,127 cases reported in total.

Earlier, Kenya's health ministry said four suspected cases of Ebola in the country had tested negative for the virus.

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