As the slaves were bought and sold in the olden days, hundreds of African refugees are being bought and sold in “slave markets” across Libya every week.
As reported by Al Jazeera, many of them are held for ransom or forced into prostitution and sexual exploitation to pay their captors and smugglers. A human trafficker has revealed that they are either murdered in open desert by their smugglers or die from thirst or car accidents.
Bodies dumped in threes, fives or more at the gates of the Sabha health facility by smugglers an official in Sabha disclosed. According to a Libyan health official, a morgue in the southern city of Sabha is overflowing with corpses. The refrigerator being faulty, bodies often give off foul stench. Those who are fortunate enough to be buried are buried without names or proper graves.
Most of the refugees and migrants are from Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon, Zambia, Senegal, Gambia and Sudan. They are smuggled into Libya by a network of criminal gangs on the promise of reaching Europe’s shores. Libya is the main gateway for people attempting to reach Europe by sea.