Detainees in Libya "electrocuted and burnt"

April 13, 2018

Credits: 24heures

Thousands of men, women and children are being held in horrible conditions in Libya by armed groups, according to a UN report released on Tuesday. Libya has fallen into chaos after the fall of dictator Muammar Gaddafi after a popular uprising in 2011.

Armed groups took advantage of this situation. From 2014, they arrested not only members of rival factions, but also journalists, political figures and even medical staff, according to the report of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL).

The information gathered revealed a "prolongued and arbitrary detention system as well as systematic violations of human rights in detention". According to figures from October 2017, some 6,500 people were languishing in official prisons under the control of the police, dependent on the Ministry of Justice. "This report shows not only the untold abuses and violations suffered by Libyans deprived of their freedom, but also the horror and the arbitrariness of such detentions," High Commissioner Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein said.