NATO’s ‘new’ Libya, bloodshed continues

This video says about itself:

Detained by Militias: Libya‘s Migrant Trade (Part 1)

15 September 2015

In a desperate bid to seek a better life in Europe, thousands of refugees and migrants leave the shores of Libya and cross the perilous Mediterranean Sea every month. Over 2,000 people have died making the journey in 2015 alone.

The routes to and journey through Libya are also dangerous, however, and since the fall of Muammar Qaddafi in 2011, the country has struggled to achieve and maintain stability. Porous desert borders, rival fighters, and weak governance have left much of Libya in complete chaos.

With militias controlling large swathes of land, their attentions have turned to the people who cross their territories. The fighters assert they are bringing order to the country as they detain the refugees, yet these people’s lives have become valuable commodities to the militias as they try to solidify their positions in the country.

VICE News secured exclusive access to a camp outside Tripoli, run by a militia that has seized hundreds of migrants. Food is scarce, dehydration and disease is rife, and control comes in the form of whips and warning shots. The militia claims to have the migrants’ interests at heart, but what emerges is a very different story.

In part one of a two-part series, VICE News examines how Libya is struggling with the Mediterranean migrant crisis, where state-run detention centers are overcrowded and violent, and how government immigration controls are outsourced to militias, where they detain migrants en masse.

This video is called Kidnapped and Sold: Libya’s Migrant Trade (Part 2).

In the ‘new’ Libya created by the 2011 NATO war, there is slavery now.

And the bloodshed continues.

Translated from Dutch NOS TV: today

At least 20 dead by fights in Tripoli, airport closed

In fighting between rival paramilitary groups in the Libyan capital Tripoli, at least twenty people have been killed today. Dozens were injured. It is the most fierce fighting in Tripoli in recent months.

Mitiga airport has been closed for an indefinite time. A few parked aircraft were damaged. The international airport of Tripoli was destroyed in 2014 and put out of use. Mitiga, originally a military airport, has since been used as a civilian airport as well. …

Both the airport and the prison are controlled by Rada, a self-appointed anti-terror unit that falls under the Ministry of the Interior of the Unity Government [one of various governments in Libya]. The attack was carried out by rival fighters from Tajoura, east of Tripoli.

Tripoli had been in the hands of several rival militias since the deposition of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

A double car bombing in Libya has left at least 22 people dead and 30 wounded: here.

AT LEAST 33 people died in a twin car bombing that struck the Libyan city of Benghazi last night: here.

Related articles

• Eight migrants drown as Italian coastguard attempts to rescue first sinking boat of 2018
• Survivors, coastguard say dozens of migrants missing off Libya