[Libya]: Libya Herald - Illegal immigration – a concern but “under control”

[Picture from same article - copyright libyaherald.com, 4/03/2013 – Photo: Houda Mzioudet]Tripoli, 3 March 2013:

“They may return, be jailed and so on and so forth; that is life. But otherwise there will be no illegal immigration.”

“They do not want to send us back home. Look at the food here. They do not want to deport us. We are suffering here. We want to go back to our countries,” an angry Sub-Saharan African illegal immigrant told the Libya Herald from behind bars in the Abu Rashada detention centre for illegal immigrants in Gharian. Another one shouted: “Tell the authorities that people here want to go back home.”

Fifty-three young men from different African countries are crammed into what looks like a rectangular, medium-sized jail cell of the detention centre. Four or five other equally full mobile metal structures serving as cells hold more detainees. The 200 or so residents of the centre have been here between two months and a year awaiting deportation to their countries of origin. Most hail from Niger, Chad, Gambia, Ghana, Ivory Coast and Nigeria and have one goal in common: they came to Libya for work to be able to support their famlilies back home. “You know we come from a very poor countries, that is why we came to Libya,” another one added.

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