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Chairman of the Board of Directors of Assaray Trade and Investment Bank, Noman Al-Bouri, and the banks manager, Farouq Al-Obaidi, were abducted in Tripoli on Saturday.Sources said Al-Bouri and Al-Obaidi were abducted by gunmen after attending a celebration at Corinthia Hotel last night. Their whereabouts is still unknown.The banks employees went on strike on Sunday, demanding the immediate release of the two officials.

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The director of the General Electricity Company (GECOL), Abdul-Majeed Hamza, said Libya is about to demand 200 megawatts of electricity supply from Tunisia and Egypt to meet the increase of electric grid loads. Hamza disclosed during a press conference on Wednesday losses estimated at $ 15 billion between debt, looting and vandalism.

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Sources in the city of Surman said two people were killed in an armed dispute between two families which grew rapidly as both sides received reinforcements. The source explained that the reasons for the dispute was a shipment of fuel which resulted in the two parties using light and medium weapons against each other, which resulted in the burning of houses, property and cars belonging to one of the families, which in turn had to leave the area.

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A number of residents of the city of Zuwara demonstrated peacefully to demand the cessation of fuel smuggling operations that is damaging the economy of the country. The demonstrators also demanded the prevention of fuel trucks entering the city except for those carrying official papers, on their way to official stations and accompanied all the way to its destination.

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A representative of the Sudanese community in the city of Misrata, Moataz Abbas, said that eight Sudanese children will be repatriated after they became stuck in Libya following the death of their parents who joined ISIS in the city of Sirte in 2015. Abbas said that the children were transferred from Sirte to a reform center in Misrata. The plane taking them home to Sudan will leave from Tripoli.

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Social media sources have confirmed the kidnapping of the renowned activist Khalid Tabib. Tabib is a vocal supporter of the General National Congressand the Government of National Salvation, and sources have indicated that Tabib was kidnapped by unidentified gunmen, last Tuesday in the area of Zawiat Dahmani in Tripoli city center. No one has claimed responsibility for the disappearance of Tabib or declared where he is being held as of yet.

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The head of the National Oil Corporation, Mustafa Sannallah, expects Libya's oil production to rise to 1 million bpd by the end of next July after the resumption of oil production in a number of fields nationwide if production continues at its current pace without interruption. Sanallahs expectations come after the declaration of the Bayda oil fields return to operating after it was out of order for three years as a result of repeated acts of sabotage.

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The municipal council of Sirte in cooperation with the Scout Regiment, started distributing food baskets to needy families in a number of different residential neighborhoods in the city. The initiative distributed approximately three thousand food baskets which contained foodstuffs, baby milk and other various items to the neediest families in the city.

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Gharyan city council announced on its official Facebook page on Saturday that the director of the Gharayan Satellite Control Center which belongs to the Rascomstar Company, Abdul Raouf Hamza, said that the Libyan satellite Qaf 1 is still in the spacecraft specified for it and that it has been under the control of those responsible for its operation since its launch, denying that any country was responsible for hijacking the satellite. Hamza added that an Italian company was contracted to be a backup station in the event of any emergency and this decision is a result of random conflicts that break out in the western region but either way the satellite remains under direct supervision of Libyans.

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The spokesman for the Ministry of Defense of the UN proposed government, Mohammed Al-Ghassri, confirmed the announcement made by an operation room of the Bunyan Al-Marsoos operation to mobilize its forces in the city of Sirte and its environs. This decision comes in order to secure the city and increase the alertness of their forces for fear of any security breach during the days of Eid Al-Fitr. Al-Ghassri indicated that the forces are still at war and are prepared for any emergency required while he denied news of a deteriorated security situation in Sirte which was circulated on various social networking sites.

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News Roundup - Sun, Jun 18, 2017 - The Libya Observer

Libya's coast guard has intercepted 906 migrants off the western city of Sabratha.

The migrants were on board several wooden and rubber boats, coast guard spokesman Ayoub Qassem says.

One of the rubber boats was perforated and nearly submerged, and a wooden boat had its engine missing.

The migrants were African, Asian and Arab, and included 98 women and 25 children, Qassem says.

Libya has been in turmoil for years and is the most common departure point for migrants trying to reach Europe by sea.

More than 60,000 migrants have crossed the central Mediterranean route from Libya to Italy this year.

RAW 2017

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Libya intercepts more than 900 migrants - 9news.com.au

Some of the captives said they had had their teeth pulled out and their arms broken. Photograph: Issouf Sanogo/AFP/Getty Images

The United Nations migration agency expressed deep concern for around 260 Somali and Ethiopian migrants allegedly held and mistreated by criminal gangs in Libya, saying it believed that a harrowing video of them posted on social media was authentic.

The International Organization for Migration said a video posted on Facebook earlier this month showed abused Somalis and Ethiopians huddled fearfully in a concrete room.

The IOM said a Somali journalist based in Turkey recorded the video call from a gang in which some migrants claimed to have been beaten. Some alleged having their teeth pulled out and arms broken. The authenticity of the video could not be independently verified.

The agency said some captives relatives had received videos asking them to pay $8,000 to $10,000 or their child or relative will be killed. The captives exact location was not known, but the IOM said the relevant authorities had been informed.

The IOM has long decried risks taken by human traffickers with the migrants and refugees they ferry through relatively lawless Libya and into the Mediterranean sea by boat en route to Italy. Libya has been without a stable, central government since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, and has been a major departure point for tens of thousands of people, mostly from the Horn of Africa, who seek to cross the Mediterranean to reach relative peace and stability in Europe.

In the video, posted on Facebook, a man calling himself Abdinajib Mohamed speaks to the camera: I am here for a year now. I am in trouble. I am starved. Anyone who has gone through such ordeal would have hated life altogether. Look at my body they beat me every day with batons. They dont want to release me.

Another young man who called himself Nur Ali Awale said he had been held for 15 months. They beat me with iron bars, he said. I travelled from Ethiopia. They ordered me to pay $8,300, and my family cannot afford to pay that amount.

A veiled woman who said she had travelled from Bossaso city in northern Somalia with her two children said she had been beaten daily.

Originally posted here:
UN 'deeply concerned' at migrants allegedly held for ransom in Libya - The Guardian

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Popular protests against the authoritarian rule of Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi in Libya in February 2011 resulted in violent armed conflict between Gaddafis forces and rebel fighters. In March 2011, NATO implemented a no-fly zone to enforce UN Resolution 1973, which condemned the systematic violation of human rights by the Libyan authorities under Gaddafi and authorized member states to take all necessary measures to protect civilians and civilian populated areas. By October the same year, Libyas interim authorities declared the countrys official liberation from Gaddafis rule. General elections took place in July 2012, and Libya experienced a period of relative stability and growth.However, throughout 2013 and 2014, tensions grew between different political and militia factions. This resulted in the emergence of two distinct blocs. One bloc, comprised mainly of Islamist factions, sought the removal of Gaddafi-era officials from positions of power. The other blocopposed Islamist groups and believed former regime figures could continue to play a role in Libya. A second general election took place in June 2014; however, the Islamist political factions fared poorly. In response to the political defeat, Islamist-aligned militias took control of Tripoli by force, reinstated the previous government, and declared the 2014 elections unconstitutional. The newly-elected parliament fled to eastern Libya where they continued to meet. The result was two separate sets of governing institutions one in eastern Libya and the Islamistbacked government in Tripoli covering different parts of the country and with competing claims to legitimacy.

This fragmentation of Libyas social and political fabric led to instability, violence and confusion, particularly in the capital of Tripoli. As conflict escalated in 2014, many foreign embassies and international organisationsrelocated across the borderto Tunisia. International support also shiftedfrom high-level, governance-related programming to peace building assistance and humanitarian aid. Throughout 2015, the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) attempted to bring rival factions together to agree on a unity government. On 17 December 2015, partly as a result of UNSMILs efforts, Libyan representatives signed the Libyan Political Agreement (LPA) in Morocco, creating the Government of National Accord (GNA) that took power in Tripoli in March 2016.

However, conflict has continued to flare up across the country while daily living standards have dropped due to instability, damaged infrastructure and economic decline. The GNA has faced major difficulties in exerting control outside of Tripoli, while institutional reunification and political reconciliation efforts have been slow to gain traction. To date, Libya remains a deeply divided country where militias wield more power than politicians, and smugglers, people traffickers and jihadist groups are able to exploit the population.

Excerpt from:
Non-Military Perspectives on Recent Developments in Libya - ReliefWeb

This file photo taken on April 01, 2017 shows migrants from West Africa waiting in a room at a "ghetto" in Agadez, northern Niger, as they wait to go to Libya from where they will attempt to reach Europe by crossing the Mediterranean sea. ISSOUF SANOGO / AFP

Agadez, Niger- Back in the days when Muammar Gaddafi was leader, Libya was billed as a top destination for those looking for jobs and money. But it has turned into the seventh circle of hell for migrants whose experiences range from exploitation verging on slavery to kidnapping and torture.

Migrants told Agence France Presse in Agadez, the main city in central Niger, about their suffering in Libya, which is in the grip of anarchy, controlled by a network of armed groups and militias, a place where African migrants are exposed to every form of abuse.

Now Libya is bad, bad, bad, said Ibrahim Ali, a native of Guinea-Bissau who has just returned to Agadez.

Exhausted by his trip back through the desert, this young man appears traumatized by the two years he spent working there.

Guns, everywhere guns. It no good any more, agrees Eric Manu, a 36-year-old bricklayer from Ghana who stayed there for several years.

Too much problems.

He said he left because of the unrest but also because wages had fallen by two-thirds and that hed had problems being paid.

You can work and they dont pay you.

Kante Sekou, a 27-year-old graduate, left Guinea in 2013 in the hope of getting to Europe.

But he gave up after reaching Libya where he spent a difficult time dodging both the police, who were arresting people, and the militias who were fighting each other.

He was finally taken on as a laborer on a construction site with a group of other migrants.

We were paid 15 dinars ($11/10 euros) per day and we had to hand over five of that for food. But we never saw any money. We would sometimes go three or four weeks without being paid, he said.

The food ran out and we didnt know what to do, recalls Sekou, who holds a degree in communications studies. In one village, we had to go into an abattoir (to find food). We took the leftovers camels feet and things like that which nobody wanted.

It didnt taste good but we had to do it.

One day, the workers were told the money had arrived, but Sekou wasnt paid what he was owed so he upped and left, moving to Misrata in the west where he worked as a decorator.

He also had a run-in with bandits, who routinely kidnap migrants and lock them up in makeshift prisons in order to extort a random.

Once, I had to jump out of a moving car to escape from armed men who wanted to take me away, he recalls. Others werent so lucky, such as 26-year-old Ibrahim Kande from Senegal who says anyone earning money which is usually sent home to support family is targeted by bandits.

If you earn money, the boys (armed men) catch you, beat you, and put you in prison not a normal prison, a private one, he says.

They lock you up and you have to pay between 200,000 and 500,000 CFA to get out the equivalent of 300-750 euros ($350-$850).

They call your parents and you have to tell them Send me the money or theyll kill me.

The money is picked up in the home country by an intermediary who gives the green light to free the captive, according to a modus operandi confirmed by multiple migrants.

Then, through various murky channels, the money is transferred to Libya.

They hit me many times, they kicked me, stabbed me, says Kande, showing scars on his forehead and on his leg. They robbed me three times. You cant sleep, youre always afraid. I suffered a lot.

Balde Aboubakar Sikiki from Kindia, a city in Guinea, was also kidnapped and held in a private prison.

They look like normal houses from the outside, but there are rooms where they lock you up. There are many people in there, says this 35-year-old.

He also says he was tortured before paying the ransom to get out.

They take you out of the cell and they beat you on the soles of your feet with batons or cables, he says. Such stories are rife among those who have returned from Libya.

Even so, there many people in Agadez who remain undeterred by such horror stories.

It will make the journey (to Europe) more expensive because its dangerous, but in the end, its always the migrants who pay, shrugs one.

Asharq Al-Awsat is the worlds premier pan-Arab daily newspaper, printed simultaneously each day on four continents in 14 cities. Launched in London in 1978, Asharq Al-Awsat has established itself as the decisive publication on pan-Arab and international affairs, offering its readers in-depth analysis and exclusive editorials, as well as the most comprehensive coverage of the entire Arab world.

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Libya: Once an Opportunity, Now Hell for Migrants - Asharq Al-awsat English