In Libya, in Zintan's detention centre, migrants die of hunger

April 10, 2019
Credits: DR

 

The dead are piling up in Libyan detention centers where thousands of forcibly detained migrants are crammed. In Zintan, south of the Libyan capital, the official center - under the Libyan Department of Combating Illegal Migration (DCIM) - the living conditions are catastrophic. Worse, people are dying of hunger.

According to a migrant Jon*, who has been locked up in Zintan's detention centre for several months, water and food are sorely lacking. "Migrants have recently died of hunger, and since September 14 people have died: some died of tuberculosis, others because they had not eaten enough," he says.

"We do not have enough food, not even enough water"

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has access to official DCIM camps. But according to Jon, neither the UNHCR, nor the International Organization of Migration (IOM), nor any humanitarian organization like Doctors Without Borders (MSF) have come to Zintan since December.

The last deaths date back to March 12, he says. "There were three bodies, two men and a woman". Jon does not know what happened after.

 

 

*The name has been changed

Read more: InfoMigrants