Left to rot’: Inside Libya’s squalid detention centres where migrants and refugees suffer a ‘slow death’

With aid services devastated, borders closed and a spike in fighting, UN officials say 2020 could prove the worse year yet for the most vulnerable in Libya, reports Bel Trew

Friday 04 September 2020 17:27

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he refugees sleep in shifts, 25 of them crushed together in a tiny room-turned-prison like knives in a cutlery drawer. There isn’t enough space for everyone to lie down at the same time.

They share a single toilet, which is a putrid hole in the ground, and say they have not seen the sun in a year. All have been tortured along their journey through treacherous deserts.

Speaking to The Independent via phones smuggled into the squalid cells, the Eritrean refugees said of all the terrible years they have spent in war-torn Libya, 2020 has been the worst.

“We are experiencing torture and abuse, there is no way for us to escape and save our lives,” says Jemal, 30, who fled arrest in Eritrea in 2017, leaving his wife and child behind. “No one can imagine the nightmare we live through.” readmore