HRW raps Europe's forced return of refugees to Libya
An international rights group has criticized European authorities for sending refugees trying to reach the continent back to Libya.
Executive Director of Human Rights Watch (HRW) Kenneth Roth on Thursday lashed out at a Brussels-backed deal that helps Libya block refugees from trying to reach Europe.
"The way migrants are treated in Libya is horrendous, where we hear over and over stories of forced labor, forced sexual abuse, torture," he said.
Shocking footage late last year showed black Africans being sold in a Libyan market.
According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), at least 3,100 migrants died or disappeared trying to cross to Europe last year.
Roth described the EU-Libya deal as “the evil that governments can do”.
The IOM "has said that more migrants are dying inside Libya than die once they get in a boat to cross the Mediterranean. So that gives you a sense of how bad things are," Roth said.
The HRW chief criticized the forceful return of the asylum-seekers who had succeeded in reaching the EU and did not want to be returned.
"You can help them return home if that's what they want, but nobody should be forcibly returned to Libya," he said.
EU officials revealed in October that Brussels had been training Libyan coastguards to stop the flow of asylum-seekers.
Roth said European officials were "trying to do indirectly what they can't do directly by building up and training the Libyan coastguard so that the Libyans on their own can simply return people back to the traffickers."
Moroccan activist gets prison sentence for criticizing normalization with Israel
Gaza genocide becoming reminiscent of Rwanda genocide, Algeria warns
'Void peace treaty with Israel': Moroccans join Jordanian protests
Iran, China discuss military cooperation
Sanders to Netanyahu: 'Don’t insult American people’s intelligence'
Tehran economic conference: Raeisi hails Iran-Africa expansion of ties
VIDEO | Press TV's news headlines
Severe heat wave hits India as phase 2 of polling begins
What to expect after President Raeisi's visit to Pakistan
China describes Iran as ‘strategic partner' in West Asia
April 25: ‘Axis of Resistance’ operations against Israeli occupation
This makes it easy to access the Press TV website
