Migrants locked in detention camps in Tripoli face increasing danger as the prospect of a drawn-out siege looms. Inconsistent responses from Europe to the crisis have left them little hope.

At least three thousand migrants remained trapped in official camps in or near conflict zones in Tripoli as General Khalifa Haftar’s advance from the south looked increasingly bogged-down on Tuesday.

There are reports of many more migrants in unofficial detention camps, but Doctors Without Borders (MSF) coordinator Craig Kenzie said those locked up in official camps with no control over their own safety, only hundreds of meters away from front lines, were „exceptionally vulnerable.“

Kenzie said that the „dangerous and inhumane“ conditions MSF was already witnessing inside camps before Haftar’s push to take the western capital two weeks ago have only gotten worse. […]

Migrants ‚weaponized‘

Some militias in the Tripoli conflict have come to see control over migrants as both a source of revenue and legitimacy in the eyes of Libyan authorities and their European partners, turning them into a tool of war, according Jacob Mundy, an associate professor of peace and conflict studies at Colgate University .

„A militia that controls a detainee center can say it’s a constructive partner in terms of international migration, so then the migrants obviously become weaponized to a certain extent in who can control them,“ Mundy told DW from Tunisia.

Mundy said the question of whether militias in control of migrants were economically motivated was key because it would determine how much they might fear Haftar’s advance as threatening their trade and could lead to a protracted conflict. […]

DW | 16.04.2019

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Libia, Tripoli: migliaia di libici in fuga, 3.000 migranti bloccati in zone a rischio, senza cibo e medicinali

Un report di Medici Senza Frontiere. Si cerca riparo in rifugi temporanei in scuole e altri edifici. Le strutture sanitarie hanno scorte mediche per meno di 2 settimane. Manca acqua ed elettricità

Un altro report di Medici Senza Frontiere (MSF) segnla la tragica situazione dei civili a Tripoli. L’intensificarsi dei combattimenti ha costretto migliaia di famiglie libiche a fuggire dalle proprie case per cercare riparo dai parenti o in rifugi temporanei in scuole e altri edifici. Le strutture sanitarie hanno capacità limitata e scorte di forniture mediche per meno di due settimane. Molte persone vivono giorni senza acqua ed elettricità e ci sono oltre 3.000 rifugiati e migranti bloccati nei centri di detenzione vicini al conflitto, che ricevono cibo e servizi base in modo saltuario e rischiano da un momento all’altro di trovarsi nel fuoco incrociato. […]

La Repubblica | 18.04.2019

„Libya’s migrants under threat as battle for Tripoli sets in“