MOGADISHU (Halbeeg News) – A Somali national has committed suicide in Libyan jail after he was returned from Italy, Irish media reported.
The victim who was not named reportedly set himself fire in protest of turning him back to Libya.
Irish Times quoting his fellow detainees said the man, who is in his late 20s doused himself in petrol from a generator in the centre and lit it, after telling friends he had lost hope of being relocated to a safe country.
According to the portal, prior to the incident, officials from United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) told the victim that he had little chance of relocating him from the centre, a claim the agency said it would verify.
IOM spokesman Joel Millman said the detainee had set himself on fire as an “act of protest”.
“He was admitted into the hospital yesterday in Tripoli in the burn centre for intensive medical care. Our medical team visited him and informed the management that they are willing to support if it is needed,” he said.
However, for the men, women, and children returned to Libya, the situation is bleak. More than a dozen detainees across Tripoli contacted by phone have described detention centres rife with abuse, where they’re fed once a day at most, forced to work, and sometimes beaten or raped. Overcrowding has led to the spread of infectious diseases like tuberculosis.
Those detained include pregnant women and children of all ages.
Sources in Zintan, a detention centre 180km southwest of Tripoli, said that four detainees have died there within the past month. They say the poor conditions, including a lack of sanitation, have caused or contributed to the deaths.
In Tripoli, detainees in two centres said their families at home are being forced to send money for them to buy food because managers in the Libyan department for combating illegal immigration (DCIM)-run centres say there is no other way for them to eat.
Many detainees’ families have already paid ransoms of more than $2,000 to smugglers who held them prisoner, regularly torturing them, before allowing them to attempt to cross the Mediterranean.
One man said the manager in his centre withholds food depending on his mood and whims. “If the leader of the detention centre gets happy by something in his own personal situation he tries to serve us food, if [he] not get happy he tries to stop it.”
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