Libya’s interior ministry says three citizens are in custody accused of setting a Nigerian man on fire in what a U.N. agency described as “another senseless crime against migrants in the country”.
The Tripoli-based interior ministry said in a statement that the three Libyans on Tuesday stormed a factory in the Tripoli neighborhood of Tajoura, where African migrants were working. The Libyans detained one the workers, a Nigerian, poured gasoline on him and set him on fire.
Federico Soda, Libya country chief for the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), a U.N. migration agency, described the act as “another senseless crime against migrants in the country” and demanded those responsible be held accountable.
U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said: “Sometimes you run out of adjectives to describe what we see in all too many places.”
“The people responsible for such a heinous attack need to be brought to justice,” he said.
“This underscores, as if we needed to underscore yet again, how unsafe Libya is for migrants, for refugees, and how much the authorities on the ground still need to do to ensure the protection of these vulnerable people.”
There are half a million migrants in Libya according to IOM, some of them having worked in the oil-producing country before it descended into chaos and warfare, others attempting to travel through it to Europe.
The IOM and the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR have both repeatedly said that Libya should not be classified as a safe port for migrants.
Thousands have attempted the perilous sea crossing to Europe this year, with hundreds drowned in shipwrecks.
The Libyan coast guard, trained by the European Union to keep migrants from reaching European shores, intercepts boats at sea and returns them to Libya.
Rights groups say those efforts have left migrants at the mercy of brutal armed groups or confined in squalid and overcrowded detention centers that lack adequate food and water.
In July, three migrants from Sudan were shot dead by Libyan authorities while trying to flee detention after they were disembarked in Khums.
In May, some 30 mostly Bangladeshi migrants were shot dead in a southern desert town after being abducted by a local gang, Bangladesh and the Libyan interior ministry said at the time.
Story compiled with assistance from Reuters and wire reports.
