Libya arrest over 600 migrants

TRIPOLI: Libyan authorities violently arrested hundreds of migrants and refugees overnight at a protest camp outside a closed aid centre in Tripoli, aid groups said on Monday.

"The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) and the International Rescue Committee (IRC) are alarmed by the detention of more than 600 migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers" in the early hours of Monday morning, the groups said in a joint statement. IRC’s Libya chief Thomas Garofalo said the group’s medical teams had treated several injured people including one with a gunshot wound.

"We understand that hundreds of people, including many women and children, have now been sent onwards to detention centres where conditions are often already dire," he added. "Witnesses have told us they were met with violence this morning and that makeshift tents were burnt down," said Dax Roque, NRC’s country director. The centre had been providing aid to refugees and asylum seekers before it was permanently closed in December, prompting some migrants to set up a protest camp outside the facility.