{"id":2210,"date":"2017-06-15T02:52:13","date_gmt":"2017-06-15T02:52:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/somalicentral.com\/news\/?p=2210"},"modified":"2017-07-02T02:56:04","modified_gmt":"2017-07-02T02:56:04","slug":"un-deeply-concerned-at-migrants-allegedly-held-for-ransom-in-libya","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/somalicentral.com\/news\/un-deeply-concerned-at-migrants-allegedly-held-for-ransom-in-libya\/","title":{"rendered":"UN ‘deeply concerned’ at migrants allegedly held for ransom in Libya"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Video shows a number of Somalis and Ethiopians, who appear to have been starved and beaten, saying they are being held for ransom<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<\/div>\n

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\u00a0The United Nations migration agency expressed deep concern for around 260 Somali and Ethiopian migrants allegedly held and mistreated by criminal gangs in Libya, saying it believed that a harrowing video of them posted on social media was authentic.The International Organization for Migration said a video posted on Facebook earlier this month showed \u201cabused Somalis and Ethiopians \u2026 huddled fearfully in a concrete room\u201d.<\/p>\n

The IOM said a Somali journalist based in Turkey recorded the video call from a gang in which some migrants claimed to have been beaten. Some alleged having their teeth pulled out and arms broken. The authenticity of the video could not be independently verified.<\/p>\n

The agency said some captives\u2019 relatives had received videos asking them to pay $8,000 to $10,000 \u201cor their child or relative will be killed\u201d. The captives\u2019 exact location was not known, but the IOM said the relevant authorities had been informed.<\/p>\n

The IOM has long decried risks taken by human traffickers with the migrants and refugees they ferry through relatively lawless Libya and into the Mediterranean sea by boat en route to Italy. Libya has been without a stable, central government since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, and has been a major departure point for tens of thousands of people, mostly from the Horn of Africa, who seek to cross the Mediterranean to reach relative peace and stability in Europe.<\/p>\n

In the video, posted on Facebook, a man calling himself Abdinajib Mohamed speaks to the camera: \u201cI am here for a year now. I am in trouble. I am starved. Anyone who has gone through such ordeal would have hated life altogether. Look at my body \u2013 they beat me every day with batons. They don\u2019t want to release me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another young man who called himself Nur Ali Awale said he had been held for 15 months. \u201cThey beat me with iron bars,\u201d he said. \u201cI travelled from Ethiopia. They ordered me to pay $8,300, and my family cannot afford to pay that amount.\u201d<\/p>\n

A veiled woman who said she had travelled from Bossaso city in northern Somalia with her two children said she had been beaten daily.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2192\u00a0Source<\/a><\/p>\n

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Some of the captives said they had had their teeth pulled out and their arms broken. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2211,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[156],"tags":[52],"class_list":["post-2210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-somalia","tag-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/somalicentral.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/somalicentral.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/somalicentral.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/somalicentral.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/somalicentral.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2210"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/somalicentral.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2210\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2213,"href":"http:\/\/somalicentral.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2210\/revisions\/2213"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/somalicentral.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/somalicentral.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/somalicentral.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/somalicentral.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}