TRIPOLI, May 12 (Reuters) – Authorities in eastern Libya say they have found and deported 120 migrants who were being held captive by people traffickers south of Benghazi, and have recovered the bodies of three other migrants from the Mediterranean shore.
A statement by the security directorate in the city of Ajdabiya said an Egyptian migrant who had escaped and was found lost and exhausted in the coastal town of Bishr had led security services to the locations where the other migrants were being held.
The Egyptian had been held with compatriots and migrants of other nationalities “inside a den used to torture migrants and blackmail their families”, according to the statement, which was released late on Monday.
Since the toppling of Muammar Gaddafi in a NATO-backed uprising in 2011, Libya has become a transit route for migrants fleeing conflict and poverty to Europe via dangerous routes across the desert and over the Mediterranean.
The oil-dependent Libyan economy is also a draw for impoverished migrants seeking work, but security throughout the sprawling country is poor, leaving migrants vulnerable to abuse.
The operation to free the captive migrants lasted almost a fortnight, the Ajdabiya security directorate said.
In captivity, they had been “forced to plead for help under whippings and beatings, while their suffering is documented in videos sent to their families to extort money from them,” it said.
The bodies of two Bangladeshi migrants and one Egyptian were found on the shore in Bishr, which is located about 122 kilometers (76 miles) west of Ajdabiya, the directorate added. A boat was also found on the shore.
The directorate posted pictures appearing to show migrants sitting on the floor after they had been recovered from traffickers, and other pictures of passports, boat engines, blue plastic water containers and wooden boats, some fully assembled and others still under construction.
It said a small boat plant was also seized and that arrest warrants had been issued for “fugitive” human traffickers.
The migrants had been deported, it said, without providing details.
(Reporting by Ahmed Elumami; Editing by Aidan Lewis)
