[WATCH] NGO publishes harrowing reports of brutal violence on migrants in Libya

The humanitarian NGO Sea-Eye has published accounts of brutal violence told by two survivors of a Libyan detention camp who were saved by the migrant-rescue vessel Alan Kurdi.

The two migrants, who were interviewed by the NGO’s human rights watcher in November 2019, describe horrific scenes. One of the survivors, a woman, recounts an episode she witnessed where a newborn baby was snatched from its mother and thrown to an “angry dog”. "The dog then ate the baby," she says in the interview.

The other survivor, a young man, reports that he had to call his family to ask them to transfer money to him, after which he was beaten severely.

“We decided to publish these reports because the situation in Libyan camps is part of the reality of European border security,” Sea-Eye said, “The reports of slave trade, severe torture, ill-treatment, sexual violence, but also undersupply, completely inadequate medical care and inhumane unsanitary conditions have so far not led to a reversal of European migration policy.”

“The governments of the EU member states are guilty themselves and make us guilts during these years. Because it is our time. It is our brothers, sisters and their children who are tortured, raped and murdered in Libya.The fact that deep abysses are torn open is consciously accepted.”

The NGO is calling on the government of Germany and on the EU and all its member states to end the inhumane policy of returning those rescued at sea back to Libya and return to applying human rights-oriented, humanitarian policy.

“Particularly vulnerable people, e.g. families, pregnant women and children must be evacuated and not handed over to criminals,” Sea-Eye added.