UNITED NATIONS: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Monday he was horrified by video footage showing migrants sold as slaves in Libya and that these auctions should be investigated as possible crimes against humanity.
US television network CNN aired the footage last week of an apparent live auction in Libya where black men were presented to North African buyers as potential farmhands and sold off for as little as $400.
“Slavery has no place in our world and these actions are among the most egregious abuses of human rights and may amount to crimes against humanity,” Guterres told reporters.
“I am horrified at news reports and video footage showing African migrants in Libya reportedly being sold as slaves,” he said, adding: “I abhor these appalling acts.”
Guterres called on “all competent authorities” to investigate the slave auctions without delay, adding he had asked the “relevant United Nations actors to actively pursue this matter.”
Libyan Deputy Prime Minister Ahmed Metig said his UN-backed Government of National Accord would investigate the allegations, in a statement posted Sunday on the Facebook page of the GNA’s press office.
The images have triggered outrage from African leaders and calls for an inquiry.
Guinean President Alpha Conde, who is also chairman of the African Union, on Friday called for an inquiry and prosecutions relating to what he termed a “despicable trade... from another era.”
Senegal’s government expressed “outrage at the sale of Sub-Saharan African migrants on Libyan soil” that constituted a “blight on the conscience of humanity.”
Niger’s president Mahamadou Issoufou said the issue had made him “deeply angry” and urged Libyan authorities and international organizations to do “everything possible to stop this practice.”
Libya slave auctions may be crime against humanity: UN chief
Libya slave auctions may be crime against humanity: UN chief
Iraq starts investigations into Daesh detainees moved from Syria
- Those detainees are among 7,000 Daesh suspects, previously held by Syrian Kurdish fighters
- In 2014, Daesh swept across Syria and Iraq, committing massacres and forcing women and girls into sexual slavery
BAGHDAD: Iraq’s judiciary announced on Monday it has begun its investigations into more than 1,300 Daesh group detainees who were transferred from Syria as part of a US operation.
“Investigation proceedings have started with 1,387 members of the Daesh terrorist organization who were recently transferred from the Syrian territory,” the judiciary’s media office said in a statement, using the Arabic acronym for Daesh.
“Under the supervision of the head of Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council, several judges specializing in counterterrorism started the investigation.”
Those detainees are among 7,000 Daesh suspects, previously held by Syrian Kurdish fighters, whom the US military said it would transfer to Iraq after Syrian government forces recaptured Kurdish-held territory.
They include Syrians, Iraqis and Europeans, among other nationalities, according to several Iraqi security sources.
In 2014, Daesh swept across Syria and Iraq, committing massacres and forcing women and girls into sexual slavery.
Backed by US-led forces, Iraq proclaimed the defeat of Daesh in the country in 2017, and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) ultimately beat back the group in Syria two years later.
The SDF went on to jail thousands of suspected extremists and detain tens of thousands of their relatives in camps.
Last month, the United States said the purpose of its alliance with Kurdish forces in Syria had largely expired, as Damascus pressed an offensive to take back territory long held by the SDF.
In Iraq, where many prisons are packed with Daesh suspects, courts have handed down hundreds of death sentences and life terms to people convicted of terrorism offenses, including many foreign fighters.
Iraq’s judiciary said its investigation procedures “will comply with national laws and international standards.”
