A recent U.N. report estimates that over 7,000 prisoners remain detained in Libya. A substantial percentage of these men, women, and children are sub-Saharan African migrants caught up in the volatile transition of power. Accounts of arbitrary arrest and torture have been documented by human rights …
Archive for the ‘Libya’ Category
Libya’s ‘New Racism’
September 5th, 2011
Black African migrants in Libya face an increasingly perilous situation. As we have blogged before, black African migrants have been the target of attacks by anti-Gaddafi forces on suspicion of being mercenaries for the regime since the conflict in Libya began. Recent reports suggest that the dange...
Unspeakable Cruelty: Abused Ethiopian Nanny Found at Gaddafi Compound
August 30th, 2011
A horrific story was uncovered today when an Ethiopian woman, a former “servant” of the Qaddafi family, was found in the Qaddafi compound, totally brutalized and burned. Shweyga Mullah was working for Hannibal, Qaddafi’s son, and his wife, Aline. Aline Skaf is a Lebanese actress b...
Nepal’s Challenge: Documenting Missing Migrants in the Middle East
March 31st, 2011
The Nepali government has had some difficult lessons to learn from the crises in Libya and Japan. A lack of reliable data proved a major stumbling block in its attempts help stranded citizens in recent weeks, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has admitted that consular staff wasted a lot of time &...
Nepali Migrants Trapped in Tripoli
March 15th, 2011
An article by Nepali journalist Deepak Adhikari on Nepali migrant workers stranded in Libya, re-posted with permission. Adhikari writes for The Kathmandu Post, and has written frequently about labour migration issue. You can see read his personal blog here. Trapped in Tripoli On a warm afternoon on ...
Where are the Protests for Migrants’ Rights?
March 7th, 2011
Below are excerpts from a great op-ed by Steve Royston for the Bahraini Gulf Daily News. His article explains why in this age of popular uprisings, protesters are not lifting the banner of migrant workers’ rights. The article illustrates the difficulty of advancing migrants’ workers huma...
International Companies Abandon Migrant Workers in Libyan Crisis
March 2nd, 2011
Thousands of Asian migrant workers have been left to ‘fend for themselves’ in riot-hit Libya after their employers abandoned them. Many of these workers work as unskilled labourers in the construction sector. Hossain Kabir, a Bangladeshi construction worker, told AFP that he had been tra...
IOM Pleads for US$11m to Evacuate Libya Workers
February 27th, 2011
The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) has appealed to the international community to give US$11 million to evacuate tens of thousands of migrant workers trapped in Libya. According to OIM Director General William Lacy Swing: “The situation of the migrants stuck inside Libya is e...
African Migrants Targeted by Libyans amid Turmoil
February 27th, 2011
Several reports coming out of Libya indicate that African migrant workers and asylum-seekers are being targeted and even murdered by anti-Qaddafi forces, suspecting them to be mercenaries hired by Qaddafi to massacre the Libyan protesters. Since the third day of the Libyan uprising, when Qaddafi...
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