A former Nigerian government minister has claimed that Nigerian migrants are having their organs harvested after being sold into slavery in Libya.
Femi Fani-Kayode, a onetime aviation minister in Nigeria, claimed that 75 per cent of slaves who have their organs harvested in North Africa are from his country.
The Cambridge University-educated lawyer added that the victims have their ‘bodies mutilated’ and are ‘roasted like suya [shish kebabs]’.
He went on: ‘Roasted alive! This is what Libyans do to sub-Saharan Africans who are looking for a transit point to Europe.
‘They sell them into slavery and either murder, mutilate, torture or work them to death.’
Fani-Kayode, writing on Twitter, also bemoaned the overthrow of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi and attacked Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari for ‘remaining silent’ about slavery.
It comes after a shocking report revealed that migrants and refugees are being sold as slaves by human traffickers in Libya for as little as a few hundred pounds.
Thousands of migrants still arrive in Libya, many from sub-Saharan Africa and Africa’s Horn in the hope of crossing the Mediterranean.
However, as Italy and the EU have been financing and training Libya’s coastguard to stem the flow of people crossing the Mediterranean, many see their journey to Europe end in Libya.
Libya, a country in chaos since the overthrow of longtime dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, more or less shirks any responsibility for the thousands of people stranded on the banks of the Med.
While some are sent to detention centres, many are simply left in the hands of the human traffickers whom they had either paid or to whom they owe substantial sums.
Video obtained by CNN shows a slave auction in Libya where Nigerian men are being sold as ‘big strong boys for farm work.’
In the video, the auctioneer can be heard shouting prices, before one of the men is sold for 1,200 Libyan dinars – the equivalent of about $800 or £665.
There have been several reports on torture and abuse in the many detention centres in Libya, many of which are run by local militias due to the current power vacuum.
The UK’s Daily Mail reports that last month, the president of Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) called for EU aid to stop, saying Libya’s detention of migrants ‘must be named for what it is: a thriving enterprise of kidnapping, torture and extortion.’
Detainees told MSF how men are forced to run naked in the courtyard until they collapse from exhaustion, while women are raped and made to call family back home for money to free them.
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