Rights group accuses Libya of migrant torture

Casablanca: Libyan authorities are jailing immigrants arbitrarily, submitting them to torture and forced labour, a Moroccan migrant support group said on Wednesday.

Migrant support group AFVIC said Libyan officials had been picking up migrants at the country's borders, stripping them of their belongings and throwing them into detention centres without a fair trial or the right to contact their families.

After a crackdown on illegal migration in Morocco, Moroccans are increasingly heading to Libya to try to reach a better life in Europe, via Italy.

Libyan officials were not immediately available to comment on the accusations but Tripoli's government has dismissed similar criticism over the past two years, saying authorities here treated arrested migrants fairly.

AFVIC's comments were timed to coincide with a European Union-African Union conference in Tripoli on Wednesday to strengthen cooperation to try to stop the flood of illegal migration from poor African countries to Europe.

"There seems often to be a connivance between the people smugglers and the Libyan authorities to relieve the migrants of their belongings," said Khelil Jemmah, AFVIC's president.

AFVIC said some migrants had reported wide-spread malnutrition in the prisons, with inmates forced to sleep on the floor and torture common. One witness spoke of a prisoner who had his toenails ripped off and cases of sexual abuse.

"What Libya is doing is against international human rights conventions that it has signed," said lawyer Noureddine Karam.