Libya’s Attorney General, Al‑Siddiq Al‑Sour has confirmed the release of over 100 migrants who were captured by a gang in Eastern Libya after a successful operation by law enforcers.
Libya has become a transit route for migrants fleeing conflict and poverty to Europe via the dangerous route across the desert and over the Mediterranean following the toppling of Muammar Gaddafi in a NATO-backed uprising in 2011.
According to the Attorney General, the migrants, which include five women were captured by the gang who engage families or loved one of the captured and demand for ransoms to warrant their release. “A criminal group involved in organising the smuggling of migrants, depriving them of their freedom, trafficking them, and torturing them to force their families to pay ransoms for their release,”
Many migrants desperate to make the crossing have fallen into the hands of traffickers. The freed migrants had been held in Ajdabiya, some 160 km (100 miles) from Libya’s second city Benghazi.
The traffickers are said to have come from Libya, Sudan and Egypt, but have now been arrested, yet to face trial.
