UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Over 12,000 detainees are held officially in 27 prisons and detention facilities across Libya and thousands more are held illegally and often in “inhumane conditions in facilities controlled by armed groups or `secret’ facilities,” the United Nations chief said in a new report. He said the thousands of detainees who don’t appear in the official statistics provided by Libyan authorities — over 12,000 — are unable to challenge the legal basis for their continued detention. “I remain gravely concerned by the continuing violations of the human rights of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers in Libya,” Guterres said in the report to the U.N. Security Council. Traffickers have exploited the chaos and often pack desperate families into ill-equipped rubber or wooden boats that stall and founder along the perilous Central Mediterranean route. Guterres said widespread arbitrary detention of migrants and refugees continued, including those rescued or intercepted trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea to Europe and returned to Libya by the Libyan Coast Guard.

Source: Libya Today January 17, 2022 23:21 UTC