The Bani Walid detention camp is a secret prison in northwest Libya near the town of Bani Walid operated by human traffickers since at least 2009. Prisoners at the center often come from subsaharan Africa en route to Europe, and include adolescents and women. In order to extort their families, detention guards reportedly torture, rape, or threaten prisoners, who face similar conditions in other camps in the region. In May 2018, many Bani Walid prisoners attempted to escape, with most being shot or recaptured.
Agence France Presse has reported that there are approximately 20 detention centers in and around the town of Bani Walid. [1]
The Geneva nonprofit agency Global Detention Project has reported that the Bani Walid Immigrant Detention Centre has been in operation since 2009. [2] After the 2011 fall of the government of Muammar Gaddafi, Libya became a major site of transit for migrants desperate to reach Europe, and Bani Walid is an important node in the migration route. [1] As of 2018 there were approximately 700,000 migrants in Libya. [3]
Reuters and Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontières, or MSF), which has worked in the region around Bani Walid since 2017, have stated that migrants are often kidnapped or tortured for extortion. [4] [5] The BBC have reported that migrants are forced to call home while being tortured, in order to extort money from families. [6] The World Socialist Web Site has reported that the Ben Walid camp is privately operated and that the United Nations does not have access to it. [3]
In October 2017, a former guard at the Bani Walid camp, Osman Matammud, was convicted in Milan, Italy of murder, abduction, and sexual violence against female detainees at the Bani Walid detention camp. [7] At the trial, witnesses to torture and abuse in the camp said that young women were repeatedly raped, and that plastic bags were placed on the backs of migrants and set on fire. [7] Others said that migrants died from torture, starvation, thirst or lack of medical treatment. [8]
Ilda Boccassini, an Italian prosecutor who has spent her career prosecuting the Mafia, stated that conditions in Bani Walid were similar to those in transit camps throughout the region. [9]
MSF have stated that they provide 50 body bags each month to an organization in Bani Walid that attempts to bury migrant dead in the area, and that 730 migrants were buried in 2017. [10]
On May 25, 2018, MSF reported that over 100 detainees held at the camp were shot as they attempted to escape. [4] At least 15 were killed and 40 were left behind at the camp, with those remaining mostly women. [4] Residents, elders, and doctors of the town of Bani Walid attempted to defend the escapees who reached the town against detention camp staff pursuing them. [4]
MSF doctors treated 25 of the escapees at Bani Walid General hospital, where victims suffered from serious gunshot wounds and fractures. [4] Many had scars from old wounds sustained from up to three years of captivity, which included electric burns. [4] Some survivors said that they had left and been sold back to the camp numerous times. [3] Survivors of the escape attempt were primarily adolescents from Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia, some seeking asylum in Europe. [4] The survivors were moved to a security facility in Bani Walid and then to detention camps in Tripoli. [4]
In February 2020, Kidane Habtemariam Zekarias was arrested in Addis Abeba, head of Bani Walid detention camp, but in 2021 he managed to escape by bribing guards. Also, Tewelde Goitom was arrested in March 2020. [11]
Médecins Sans Frontières, also known as Doctors Without Borders, is a charity that provides humanitarian medical care. It is a non-governmental organisation (NGO) of French origin known for its projects in conflict zones and in countries affected by endemic diseases. The organisation provides care for diabetes, drug-resistant infections, HIV/AIDS, hepatitis C, tropical and neglected diseases, tuberculosis, vaccines and COVID-19. In 2019, the charity was active in 70 countries with over 35,000 personnel; mostly local doctors, nurses and other medical professionals, logistical experts, water and sanitation engineers, and administrators. Private donors provide about 90% of the organisation's funding, while corporate donations provide the rest, giving MSF an annual budget of approximately US$1.63 billion.
Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simply mean imprisonment, it tends to refer to preventive confinement rather than confinement after having been convicted of some crime. Use of these terms is subject to debate and political sensitivities. The word internment is also occasionally used to describe a neutral country's practice of detaining belligerent armed forces and equipment on its territory during times of war, under the Hague Convention of 1907.
Abu Ghraib prison was a prison complex in Abu Ghraib, Iraq, located 32 kilometers (20 mi) west of Baghdad. Abu Ghraib prison was opened in the 1950s and served as a maximum-security prison. From the 1970s, the prison was used by Saddam Hussein to hold political prisoners and later the United States to hold Iraqi prisoners. It developed a reputation for torture and extrajudicial killing, and was closed in 2014.
This article describes the use of torture since the adoption of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which prohibited it. Torture is prohibited by international law and is illegal in most countries. However, it is still used by many governments.
Omar Amer Deghayes is a Libyan citizen who had legal residency status with surviving members of his family in the United Kingdom since childhood. He was arrested in Pakistan in 2002. He was held by the United States as an enemy combatant at Guantanamo Bay detention camp from 2002 until December 18, 2007. He was released without charges and returned to Britain, where he lives. His Guantanamo Internment Serial Number was 727. Deghayes says he was blinded permanently in one eye, after a guard at Guantanamo gouged his eyes with his fingers. Deghayes was never charged with any crime at Guantanamo.
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Human rights in Libya is the record of human rights upheld and violated in various stages of Libya's history. The Kingdom of Libya, from 1951 to 1969, was heavily influenced and educated by the British and Y.R.K companies. Under the King, Libya had a constitution. The kingdom, however, was marked by a feudal regime. Due to the previous colonial regime, Libya had a low literacy rate of 10%, a low life expectancy of 57 years, with many people living in shanties and tents. Illiteracy and homelessness were chronic problems during this era, when iron shacks dotted many urban centres on the country.
Slavery in Libya has a long history and a lasting impact on the Libyan culture. It is closely connected with the wider context of slavery in North African and trans-Saharan slave trade.
Libya is a transit and destination country for men and women from sub-Saharan Africa and Asia trafficked for the purposes of forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation. While most foreigners in Libya are economic migrants, in some cases large smuggling debts of $500–$2,000 and illegal status leave them vulnerable to various forms of coercion, resulting in cases of forced prostitution and forced labor.
Prisons in North Korea have conditions that are unsanitary, life-threatening and are comparable to historical concentration camps. A significant number of inmates have died each year, since they are subject to torture and inhumane treatment. Public and secret executions of inmates, including children, especially in cases of attempted escape, are commonplace. Infanticides also often occur. The mortality rate is exceptionally high, because many prisoners die of starvation, illnesses, work accidents, or torture.
The 2012 Bani Walid uprising was an event which started on 23 January 2012 due to an incident in the city of Bani Walid in which the "May 28 Brigade" militia wished to arrest local men in unclear circumstances. The May 28 Brigade and their compound were then attacked by local fighters who then took control of the town. The incident, the combatants, and the motives of the two main belligerents — the May 28 Brigade and Brigade 93 — remain uncertain and contentious. The conflict was originally reported to be an attack by Gaddafi loyalists by local NTC officials. However, tribal leaders and residents have denied any affiliation with Gaddafi's remnants, stating their goal was the establishment of their own council in the city. Similarly Britain's Foreign Office has dismissed claims of this incident representing a pro-Gaddafi attack against the NTC, stating that this was a dispute between tribal leaders of the Warfalla tribe and the NTC.
Following the end of the First Libyan Civil War, which overthrew Muammar Gaddafi, there was violence involving various militias and the new state security forces. This violence has escalated into the Second Libyan Civil War (2014–2020).
Gaddafi loyalism, in a wider political and social sense also known as the Green resistance, consists of sympathetic sentiment towards the overthrown government of Muammar Gaddafi, who was killed in October 2011, and his Third International Theory. Despite Muammar Gaddafi's death, his legacy and Jamahiriya ideology still maintains a popular appeal both inside and outside Libya into the present day. Regardless, the Western sentiment has largely been that this continued support may contribute to some of the ongoing violence in Libya.
On 3 October 2013, a boat carrying migrants from Libya to Italy sank off the Italian island of Lampedusa. It was reported that the boat had sailed from Misrata, Libya, but that many of the migrants were originally from Eritrea, Somalia and Ghana. An emergency response involving the Italian Coast Guard resulted in the rescue of 155 survivors. On 12 October it was reported that the confirmed death toll after searching the boat was 359, but that further bodies were still missing; a figure of "more than 360" deaths was later reported.
Proactiva Open Arms (POA) is a Spanish NGO devoted to search and rescue (SAR) at sea. Set up in October 2015, it carried out its first rescue action that same month from its base on the Greek island of Lesbos. As well as maintaining a permanent base on Lesbos, the NGO carries out its rescue operations from three ships, a sailing yacht Astral, the Golfo Azzurro and Open Arms.
The MV Aquarius, formerly Aquarius Dignitus and Aquarius 2, is a 1977-built dual-flagged search and rescue vessel, which has been used to rescue refugees and migrants stranded in the Mediterranean Sea since 2016. It has been chartered and operated since February 2016 by the NGOs SOS Méditerranée and Médecins Sans Frontières as a rescue vessel for migrants and refugees making the Mediterranean crossing in makeshift craft from Libya to Italy as part of the European migrant crisis.
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