A UN report claims that migrants and refugees are being subjected to “unimaginable horrors” from the moment they enter Libya and throughout their stay in that country.

The report, released by the United Nations Political Mission in Libya and the UN Human Rights Office, also showed the horrors of attempting to cross the Mediterranean.

The findings were based on 1,300 first-hand accounts gathered by UN human rights staff in Libya itself as well as from migrants who had returned to Nigeria.

It also featured accounts of Nigerians who managed to reach Italy, tracing the entire journey of migrants and refugees from Libya’s southern border across the desert to the northern coast.

“There is a local and international failure to handle this hidden human calamity that continues to take place in Libya,” said Ghassan Salamé, head of UNSMIL.

From unlawful killings, arbitrary detention and torture, to gang rape, slavery, and human trafficking, the report covers a 20-month period up to August 2018.

It detailed a terrible litany of violations and abuses committed by a range of state officials, armed groups, smugglers and traffickers against migrants and refugees.

The climate of lawlessness in Libya provides fertile ground for illicit activities, leaving migrants and refugees “at the mercy of countless predators who view them as commodities to be exploited and extorted,” the report said.

It noted that “the overwhelming majority of women and older teenage girls” report having been “gang raped by smugglers or traffickers.”

Many people were sold from one criminal group to another and held in unofficial and illegal centres run directly by armed groups or criminal gangs.

The report said: “Countless migrants and refugees lost their lives during captivity by smugglers after being shot, tortured to death or simply left to die from starvation or medical neglect.

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