UN agency says some 300 migrants intercepted off Libya coast

CAIRO — Libya’s toddle guard intercepted over 300 Europe-sure migrants off the country’s Mediterranean toddle and returned them to the capital, Tripoli, the U.N. migration agency said.

The Global Group for Migration tweeted that many of the 301 migrants, who had been on three boats and intercepted Saturday, had been taken to detention centers in Libya. It said that some managed to flee at the disembarkation level, because the boats had been introduced support to shore.

“It is unacceptable for this to proceed irrespective of repeated calls to set an discontinue to the return of inclined of us to detention and abuse,” said Safa Msehli, a spokeswoman for the IOM.

Libya, which descended into chaos following the 2011 insurrection that toppled and killed longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi, has emerged as a first-rate transit level for African and Arab migrants fleeing battle and poverty to Europe.

Most migrants win the perilous shuffle in unwell-equipped and unsafe rubber boats. The IOM said earlier this month that its estimated loss of life toll amongst migrants who tried to rotten the Mediterranean previous the “grim milestone” of 20,000 deaths since 2014.

In most current years, the European Union has partnered with the toddle guard and other Libyan forces to terminate the lag alongside with the roam of migrants.

Rights groups express these efforts devour left migrants at the mercy of brutal armed groups or confined in squalid and overcrowded detention centers that lack ample meals and water.

The EU agreed earlier this year to discontinue an anti-migrant smuggler operation bright handiest surveillance airplane and as a change deploy militia ships to be unsleeping about upholding a widely flouted U.N. arms embargo that’s conception of as key to winding down Libya’s relentless battle.