Religious persecution is a key factor driving Middle Eastern and African Christians to risk their lives crossing the Mediterranean in the hopes of reaching Europe, Amnesty International said today.
The charity warned that Christians from Nigeria, Eritrea, Egypt and Ethiopia were at particular risk amid the widespread abuses by armed groups, traffickers and gangs exploiting the “chaos and lawlessness” of Libya.
Their report issued on Monday, titled “Libya is full of cruelty”, found that religious minorities, in particular Christian migrants and refugees, “are at highest risk of abuses, including abductions, torture and other ill-treatment and unlawful killings, from armed groups that seek to enforce their own interpretation of Islamic law and have been responsible for serious human rights abuses.”
Christians also face widespread discrimination and persecution from their employers, criminal groups and in immigration detention centres, found the report, which was based on 70 testimonies collected in Sicily and in Tunisia in recent months.
The report said the rise of armed groups which have pledged allegiance to the IS armed group has further exacerbated risks faced by religious minorities in Libya. It cited the massacre by IS jihadists of two groups of Coptic Christians in Libya.
One Nigerian man told Amnesty that Christians who came to Libya looking for work were poorly treated on account of their faith. “Libya is a country where Christians shouldn’t come. Any Libyan boss will ask you if you are Muslim or Christian. If you say you are Christian, then you are in trouble. He will not pay you. He will beat you more if you complain about anything.”
An 18-year-old Nigerian woman held in the Sabaratah detention centre on the Libyan coast said guards mistreated Christian migrants solely for practising their faith. “The guards, they are Muslim. We are Christian. Whenever we would start to pray, they would come to tell us that we should sleep...that we make too much noise. They would come with hoses and would threaten us with beatings if we don’t stop praying. Sometimes they would beat us.”
Amnesty is urging Libya's neighbours, including Tunisia and Egypt, to keep their borders open to people fleeing violence and persecution in Libya and calling for rich nations to increase the number of resettlement places for vulnerable refugees and address the serious violations of international humanitarian law being committed in Libya.
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