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The International Organization for Migration reports efforts are ongoing to rescue around 200 migrants, from Somalia and Ethiopia, who have been kidnapped in Libya and are being held for ransom.

News of the kidnappings and illegal detentions in Libya first surfaced in a video, which appeared on Facebook on June 9. The International Organization for Migration says families of the missing men and women have received ransom demands based on short video clips depicting scenes of active torture.

IOM spokesman Joel Millman told VOA the source of the video is not known, but there is little doubt as to its veracity. He said the scenes of people, dozens to a room, are graphic.

We understand that there are cases of people being tortured by cement blocks, I think, being put on their chest or put on their back," he said. "There are limbs broken. There are scars and cases of slack, listless men who appear to be emaciated. The witnesses themselves complain about not having been fed for quite some time.

Millman said the criminal gangs demand that families pay ransoms of $8,000 or more for the release of their loved ones. He said the families sell their livestock and other assets to meet these demands.

There is nothing new about the slaving industry, he said, as it has been around throughout history. What is new, he added, is the ready availability of digital devices and of high speed communication, even to some of the poorest villages in the world

It gives criminals an opportunity to profit from the digital age," he said. "There is no question that it is true that you can terrify a mother and father with a tweet or with an email or with a video you download onto a telephone in seconds. That kind of thing was not possible a generation ago and it is probably going to get worse.

The IOM said it is working with partners to try to locate the migrants and its staff, in coordination with authorities in Libya, is trying to trace and potentially aid in the rescue of these victims.

The politically-unstable country is a transit point for migrants seeking to head to Europe. The lack of a stable government makes them vulnerable to abuse and exploitation.

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Efforts Under Way to Rescue African Migrants Held for Ransom in Libya - Voice of America

As more refugees reach Italy, describing Libya as hell, Europe must ensure its actions and funds are not contributing to these abuses, urges Izza Leghtas from Refugees International. Fresh from research on Lampedusa, she outlines urgent steps for E.U. policy inLibya.

People wait to disembark from the Aquarius rescue ship run by SOS Mediterranee and Medecins Sans Frontieres.

On a sunny March day on the island of Lampedusa, a group of young men from the West African nation of Guinea sat on a bench overlooking the peacefulport.

Just three days earlier, they had survived the dangerous journey from Libya and were brought by rescuers to the small Mediterranean island. I asked them what Libya had been like. Libya is hell on earth, came the answer. That is the only word to describeit.

Interviewing refugees and migrants who had recently arrived from Libya, there seemed to be no end to the cruelty they had endured at the hands of ruthless smugglers, detention center staff, members of the Libyan coast guard and criminalgangs.

Many said they had been held for weeks or months in warehouses by smugglers who beat and tortured them and fed them only an occasional piece of bread or a small handful of pasta. Others said they had been detained in appalling conditions in detention centers where food was similarly scarce and beatings werecommon.

Women and girls are subjected to sexual abuse at all stages of the journey to Europe: in official detention centers, traveling through the Sahara desert and at the hands of peoplesmugglers.

Libya has been in turmoil since the overthrow of Moammar Gadhafi in 2011 and currently has three competing governments, militias operating across the country and a blossoming people-smuggling trade. Sub-Saharan refugees and migrants face staggering levels of racism and are often called animals by locals. Men and women told me how even walking in the street was too dangerous, as they could be kidnapped and sold likecommodities.

European leaders, desperate to stem the flow of people arriving on their shores via Libya, have made a priority of preventing departures from the Middle Eastern country. They are working with the U.N.-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) and providing training and equipment to the Libyan coast guard as well as funding to international organizations working on theground.

When the Libyan coast guard encounters a boat carrying refugees and migrants, these individuals are taken back to Libyan territory, where they are detained in migrant detention centers under appalling conditions and severe human rightsabuses.

When it comes to finding and implementing solutions for the human rights crisis that refugees and migrants face in Libya, the list of obstacles and challenges is endless. But there are a number of urgently needed measures that European leaders can and should undertake immediately. They are essential if the E.U. and its member states are to ensure that their actions and funding do not result in, or even contribute to, the abuses that lead refugees and migrants to refer to Libya ashell.

The E.U. is empowering the Libyan coast guard to do something none of its member states could do without violating internationallaw.

To be clear, the E.U. is empowering the Libyan coast guard to do something none of its member states could do without violating international law returning people to Libyan territory and thereby exposing them to horrificabuse.

For this reason, the E.U. must urgently take steps to prevent such abuses from occurring. A first step would be to work with the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) for the deployment of human rights monitors in places where refugees and migrants are forced to disembark on Libyan soil, and in the detention facilities they are taken to. In their talks with the Libyan authorities, the E.U. should also urge them to grant nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and the U.N. refugee agency free access to refugees and migrants in the centers where they areheld.

One stated reason for the actions of E.U. leaders in the Central Mediterranean is the intention to prevent further loss of life at sea. But is saving a man, a woman or a child from drowning, only for them to be taken hours later to a detention center where they may face malnutrition, sexual abuse and deadly beatings, really savingthem?

Is saving a man, a woman or a child from drowning, only for them to be taken hours later to a detention center where they may face malnutrition, sexual abuse and deadly beatings, really savingthem?

The E.U. is spending more than $146 million on migration-related projects in Libya, part of which has been earmarked to improve conditions in detention centers. Last week, the German foreign minister announced that Germany would provide the Libyan authorities with $3.9 million to improve conditions in centers where refugees and migrants areheld.

But detention centers where people are deprived of their liberty with no judicial process and no end in sight, albeit with improved ventilation and more toilets, would still violate international law. The E.U. and its member states should insist that the Libyan authorities stop detaining migrants and refugees in closed facilities, or they risk legitimizing this abusivesystem.

It is no secret that for E.U. leaders, preventing refugees and migrants from reaching Italy via Libya is a priority. But actions that are taken in the name of European citizens and funded with their taxes should not lead to men, women and children becoming trapped in a place where they may face torture, slavery and rape. It is the duty of European leaders to uphold the values of human dignity and fundamental rights on which the E.U. was founded, whether it is north or south of theMediterranean.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of RefugeesDeeply.

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EU Must Not Fuel 'Hellish' Experience for Libya's Migrants - News Deeply

Powerless against the disarray and growing anarchy that spreads around smuggling of oil, gasoline, weapons and people Hasan Dhawadi, mayor of the Libyan city of Sabratha, raised the alarm.

In a press cference on 28 March, Dhawadi complained that this coastal city lacked the necessary means to stop the small and large-scale trade that had involved entire families for generations and moves tens of millions of euros annually.

The political instability and economic crisis that has gripped the country since the fall of Muammar Gaddafis dictatorship has facilitated dozens of opportunistic entrepreneurs joining the usual traffickers. We need outside help, he said.

Smuggling anything is a profitable and simple business in present-day Libya, a failed state without a government or unified military.

It is almost impossible to discern the limits of one or the other, or know the exact links because many times clans of the same tribe are each dedicated to a particular niche: some sell weapons, others sell people or fuel.

They work like the big supermarkets there is the fuel section, immigrants, weapons, cars, food, a European intelligence member working in the region told EFE under the condition of anonymity.

It is very difficult to fight them, they know the terrain, they have been in the business for a long time and they are well protected by heavily armed militias, he added.

Occasionally, the Libyan Coast Guard intercepts an oil tanker near a beach or the Tunisian authorities stop a truck at the border, Dhawadi said.

But the fact that its profits with little risk allows (all kinds of smuggling) to continue. And it will not stop while gasoline remains cheaper than a bottle of water in Libya, he said.

The mayor said that, without work or a future, enlisting in militias or entering into the vast world of illegal trade were easy exits (options?) for young Libyans.

We are not facing a new phenomenon, the intelligence officer said.

Smuggling is an activity that has always been seen in Sahel, even with Gaddafi, the difference being that it was controlled by the regime itself which took over the routes, he said.

The Tuareg and Tebu semi-nomadic tribes have lived in the inhospitable sands bordering Sudan, Algeria, Chad, Tunisia, Niger and Egypt for centuries, controlling the ancient caravan routes of the desert until the dictators greed perverted their atavistic way of life.

That region is the main operations center for networks dedicated to sending immigrants to the north, according to Frederic Wehrey, a researcher at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Any attempt by Europeans to stem the migratory crisis off the coast of Libya is doomed to fail if governance and security problems in the south are not resolved, he warned.

Wehrey said that the struggle between communities and ethnic groups for (the control of) oil fields, smuggling routes and the border has mingled with national political conflict and the interference of actors outside the south as well as outside Libya.

During the revolution against Gaddafi, a part of the Tuareg tribe joined the rebel ranks, although most of them stayed with the regime until the end.

Once overthrown, some Tuaregs joined the rebellion in Al-Azawad, a region in northern Mali, while the rest stayed in Sabha, the capital of southwest Libya, alienated by the new authorities.

The Tebu tribe took advantage of the situation and snatched the smuggling business in Kufrah district from the Arab tribe of Al Zawiya, favored by Gaddafi, with the help of opposition movements from Darfur (Sudan) involved in human trafficking.

In Rome on 2 April, both tribes renewed a pact signed in 1894 to divide the 5,000-kilometer-long (3,107 miles) desert border and the illegal trade with the Arab tribe Ould Sulaiman.

Their goal is to curb the ambitions of Marshall Khalifa Hafter, the strongman of eastern Libya, who has deployed forces to Sabha in an attempt to conquer the entire country.

Hafter knows that the south is essential. In addition to oil, he wants the smuggling routes. Both for profit and to stem the flow of weapons and money given to jihadist groups like the Islamic State or al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), a local security source told EFE.

The signing in Rome coincided with the launch of a plan to stop smuggling in Libya by the UN-backed government in Tripoli, with the aid of international funds.

According to security officers EFE consulted in the Libyan town of Nalut, some 2.6 million litres of smuggled fuel enters Tunisia daily via Dehiba pass, and the same mafia is engaged in human trafficking from Tunisia to Libya, charging around $2,128 per person.

The link between smuggling and financing international terrorism is the last piece of this puzzle.

There are no precise data, but we believe that AQIM is a fundamental factor in the illegal sale of oil and fuel in southern Libya, a source from the local security attached to the triangle of cities Awbari, Sabha and Murzuq core to smuggling in Libya, told EFE.

Moreover, military leaders of the coastal town of Misrata have established a connection between terrorist movements and mafias that traffic people.

During the liberation of Sirte, military officials told EFE that some of the women sexually enslaved by terrorists were actually undocumented migrants who had been bought from the smugglers.

A distinguished Arab diplomat remarked that EU politicians and think tank representatives did not make use of keywords such as Iraq or Islam while discussing the Unions relations with its neighbours and the refugee crisis for several hours.

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Libya, a smuggling hypermarket EURACTIV.com - EURACTIV

Saif al-Islam, son of deposed strongman Muammar Gaddafi, sits behind bars during a court session in Zintan, Libya on May 2, 2013.

The now disbanded Abu Baker al-Siddiq Brigade, which had been holding him in an unknown location in the western town of Zintan, said in an online statement on June 10, 2017, that it had released Saif al-Islam Gaddafi on June 9, citing an amnesty law passed by Libyas parliament. Gaddafi is subject to an ICC arrest warrant to answer allegations of crimes against humanity in an investigation authorized by United Nations Security Council Resolution 1970.

The reported release of Gaddafibased onaflawedamnesty law does not change the fact that heiswanted by the ICC for crimes against humanity, said Richard Dicker, International Justice director at Human Rights Watch. The Zintan brigade, which alleges that it released him, should urgently disclose his current whereabouts.

The unanimous Security Council resolution requires the cooperation of Libyan authorities with anyICC investigation, including the surrender of suspects. Gaddafi is wanted by the ICC for his alleged role in attacks on civilians, including peaceful demonstrators, during the countrys 2011 uprising. On June 14, the ICC prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, issued a statement calling for Gaddafis immediate arrest and surrender.

The Abu Baker al-Siddiq Brigade had held Gaddafi in Zintan since capturing him during his attempted escape from the country in November 2011. The Brigade is allied with the Interim Government, one of three authorities vying for legitimacy in Libya, and the Libyan National Army forces in eastern Libya. In April 2016, the Interim Government ordered Gaddafis release based on the amnesty law. Human Rights Watch was unable to reach either the Zintan brigade or representatives of the Interim Government for comment.

The Brigade held Gaddafi incommunicado and subjected him tosolitary confinementfor long periods, which amounts to torture. In January 2014, Human Rights WatchinterviewedGaddafi in an office at a base in Zintan. During the visit, Gaddafi said that he hadnot had access to a lawyerof his choosing and had been interrogated a number of times without legal counsel. The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention concluded in November 2013 that Gaddafis detention was arbitrary.

An official from the UN-backedGovernment of National Accord (GNA), headed by the Tripoli-based Presidency Council, told Human Rights Watch that the Presidency Council had no information on Gaddafis current whereabouts. A June 12 news report quoting the Interim Governments deputy justice minister, stated that the ministry did not have accurate and official information about the release of Gaddafi's son or not. Separately, on June 11, the Zintan municipal and military councils condemned Gaddafis release.

Although it never had custody of him, Tripolis Court of Assizeput Gaddafi on trial in Libya in March 2014, along with 36 other former Gaddafi officials and employees, on charges of serious crimes during the February 17 revolution that led to the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi. The authorities established a closed-circuit video link to enable Gaddafi to participate from Zintan, but he was only able to join for 4 of the 25 trial sessions, according to the UN.The court convicted and sentenced him to death in absentia on July 28, 2015. Al-Siddiq al-Sur, the chief prosecutor in the case, said that Gaddafi would have the right to a retrial once he was in the custody of the authorities in Tripoli.

The trial, which convicted 32 other Gaddafi-era officials, was undermined by serious due process violations including lack of meaningful legal representation for defendants, repeated violations of defendants right to communicate with their lawyers in confidence, and no opportunity for defendants to question prosecution witnesses in court. In February 2017, the UN issued a comprehensive report that concluded the criminal proceeding against Gaddafi and others failed to meet international fair trial standards. The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention also concluded in its November 2013 opinion that the gravity of the due process violations in Gaddafis case made it impossible to guarantee him a fair trial in Libya.

Following Gaddafis in absentia conviction in July 2015, Libyas parliament passed a general amnesty law. The law stipulates that those who commit crimes of terrorism, rape, torture, corruption, and murder by race or ethnicity may not receive an amnesty. However, it fails to rule out amnesty for other serious human rights crimes, such as forced displacement, forced disappearances, and unlawful killings.

On June 11, 2017, the Tripoli-based acting General Prosecutor, Ibrahim Massoud, asserted that Gaddafi was wanted for a retrial and did not qualify for the amnesty, and that in any event, only judicial authorities were authorized to determine who met the criteria outlined in the amnesty law. Massoud also reiterated that Gaddafi was wanted by the ICC. Libyan law stipulates that if a defendant is convicted in absentia, a retrial is to take place once the defendant is apprehended.

The internationally-recognized Government of National Accord is struggling to assert control over the countrys institutions and territory. In western Libya, it competes for control and legitimacy with another self-proclaimed authority, the Government of National Salvation. Libyas parliament supports a third authority, the Interim Government in the eastern town of al-Bayda, as well as the Libyan National Army forces under Khalifa Hiftar. The parliament has failed to confirm the GNA cabinet.

In May 2014, an ICC appeals chamber upheldanearlier decisionrejecting Libyas bid to prosecute Gaddafi domestically. The court held that Libya had not provided enough evidence to demonstrate that it was investigating the same case as the one before the ICC, arequirementunder the ICC treaty for such challenges. The ICC also held that Libya was genuinely unable to carry out an investigation of Gaddafi.

Following Libyas failure to surrender Gaddafi to The Hague, ICC judgesheldin December 2014 that Libya had failed to cooperate with the court and forwarded their finding to the UN Security Council for follow-up. Though the Security Council has a range of options to encourage Libyan cooperation including resolutions, sanctions, and presidential statements, it has not formally acted. However, individual Security Council members have consistently stressed Libyas outstanding obligation to transfer Gaddafi to The Hague, including at the ICC prosecutors last Libya briefing to the Council in May.

Al-Hadba Corrections Facility in Tripoli, where Gaddafi-era officials were being held pending an appeal of their conviction, was overrun on May 26 by the Tripoli Revolutionaries Brigade, an armed group under the command of Haitham al-Tajouri and allied with the GNA through the Interior Ministry. The Tripoli Revolutionaries Brigade moved the detainees including Abdullah Sanussi, the Gaddafi era intelligence chief, former prime minister and former head of foreign intelligence Abuzeid Dorda, and al-Saadi Gaddafi, a brother of Saif al-Islam to an undisclosed location, according to a family member of one of the detainees. But media reports said that Sanussi and other former Al-Hadba detainees were seen on June 12 in a Tripoli hotel controlled by al-Tajouri having a meal with family members and others.

In April 2017, the ICC unsealed a separate arrest warrant issued in 2013 for the former head of Muammar Gaddafis Internal Security Agency, Mohamed Khaled Al-Tuhamy, for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in Libya between February-August 2011.His whereabouts remain unknown.

While the ICC has a mandate over crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide committed in Libya since February 15, 2011, the ICC prosecutors cases remain limited to officials from the former Gaddafi government. Human Rights Watch research in Libya since 2011 has shown rampant ongoing violations of international law, including mass long-term arbitrary detentions, torture, forced displacement, and unlawful killings.In the face of mounting atrocities, Human Rights Watch has called on the ICC prosecutor to urgently pursue an investigation into the ongoing crimes by all sides, some of which may amount to crimes against humanity.

In May, Bensouda said her office was examining the feasibility of opening an investigation into migrant-related crimes should the ICCs jurisdictional requirements be met, and was committed to making the Libya situation a priority in 2017.Given the serious crimes committed in Libya and the challenges facing the authorities, the ICCs mandate remains essential to ending impunity in Libya, Human Rights Watch said.

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Libya: Surrender Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi to ICC - Human Rights Watch

Libya's plans to lift oil production to 1m barrels a day this summer hit another political obstacle after the eastern government ordered deliveries handled by Swiss-based Glencore to halt because of its connection to Qatar.

The order affects approximately 190,000 b/d of oil extracted from the Sarir and Misla fields, in southeast Libya, and exported from Tobruk's Hariga port.

A 14 June statement from Abdullah al-Thinni, prime minister of the Bayda-based government in the east (a rival to the UN-appointed Government of National Accord in Tripoli), ordered operators to halt crude exports and cancel deals with Glencore or any other business that has links with Qatar.

The Qatar Investment Authority, the nation's sovereign wealth fund, has a nine-percent stake in Glencore, which has an exclusive contract with Libya's National Oil Corporation (NOC) to buy exports from Hariga.

Thinni's order is primarily directed at Arabian Gulf Oil Company, a unit of NOC, which operates Hariga, Sarir and Mesla.

Agoco said on Wednesday it had yet to receive the orderand output has not ceasedbut executives are mindful of Thinni's threat of prosecutions if the instruction is not followed.

The eastern government has accused Qatar of backing militias opposed to it, and has followed allies Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt in their commercial embargo of the emirate.

Nagi Maghrabi, chairman of the eastern branch of NOCwhich has repeatedly sought to carve out an independent eastern oil-export business by offering discounted oil sales to small shippersaccused Qatar of "financing terrorists" in Libya through Glencore sales.

Mustafa Sanallah, chairman of the official NOC, appealed for the order to be ignored, saying in a statement on the company's website: "This will only bring suffering to the Libyan people. It will reduce our national revenues and our ability to pay for vital commodities."

Sources close to NOC said the east was making another attempt to cleave Libya's oil sector and was offering cut-price oil deals to a host of small private traders willing to defy Tripoli, NOC and the UN.

The latest political flare-up puts in peril Sanallah's ambitious plan to lift Libyan exports to 1m b/d. Production has risen quickly in recent months in the teeth of continuing civil war between forces loyal to the eastern government and militias backing parts of the GNA in Tripoli.

Exports have been steadily rising since eastern army commander Khalifa Haftar captured four central ports, including Libya's largest terminal, Es-Sider, last September, ending a two-year blockade. That capture also gave the eastern government control of the Sirte Basin, once home of two thirds of Libyan production.

In the spring, militias in southwest Libya lifted a blockade on Libya's biggest producing field, Sharara, following an appeal from Sanallah, and the country's production this month reached 0.83m b/dabout three times the output level last August.

That figure is well short of the 1.6m b/d Libya enjoyed before the overthrow of Muammar Qadhafi in 2011, but is the highest total since civil war broke out in July 2014.

Until the latest attempt by the eastern NOC to interrupt flows, the prospects for further rises looked sound. On 13 June, Sanallah announced an end to a standoff with Germany's Wintershall, whose 35,000 b/d of production was halted in May in a dispute over the company's contract. Wintershall's concession had expired and NOC had sought to transfer it to a more recent production-sharing agreement. The resolution of the dispute should allow for an increase in output.

But the Glencore problem may be a harder nut to crack, because it has been controversial since the outset. Sanallah signed the Glencore deal in November 2015 despite objections from eastern Libya, and says a major trader was necessary to assume risks associated with lifting Libyan oil.

Eastern authorities complain that while two-thirds of oil is produced in the Sirte Basin, in eastern Libya, revenues flow to the Central Bank under GNA auspices in Tripoli. Recent military advances have left eastern forces in control of much of central and southern Libya.

Glencore has not yet commented on the order, and reports from Tobruk say on Thursday loadings were proceeding as normal. The east does not have a united position on the idea of independent oil exports either. Tellingly, Field Marshal Hafter has not endorsed the plan. Other politicians in Tobruk are thought to be opposed to it too. In a letter this week to the Bayda Government, Sanallah referred to Haftar's decision to let ports trade freely in contrast to some militias who have demanded what amounts to protection money to allow them to operate: "We respect the Libyan National Army General Command for its responsible opposition to port blockades I hope you (Bayda) will take notice of their wise position on this matter."

Sanallah also warned against eastern Libya trying to sell oil independently of NOC. On the two occasions when eastern authorities have tried to do so, the tankers were blocked on the high seas, once by US Navy Seals in 2014 and last May by an order from the UN Security Council.

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Eastern Libya tries to wrest control of oil supply again - Petroleum Economist