Life Inside Libya’s Migrant Detention Centres

From Our Own Correspondent

BBC

News, News Commentary

4.4 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 11 October 2018

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Thousands of people have been intercepted by the Libyan coastguard as they try to reach Europe and sent to detention centres in the capital Tripoli. Gaining access to them is difficult, but that doesn’t mean those inside them have given up on trying to get their stories out. Sally Hayden hears tales of abandonment, abuse, and slavery. Kate Adie introduces this and other stories from journalists and correspondents around the world. Jatinder Sidhu hears from the pro-pot campaigners who won’t be celebrating the legalisation of the drug in Canada but are instead mourning the loss of a counter-culture which they’ve nurtured over decades. James Clayton tries to make sense of why manual scavenging persists in India – the use of human waste removers to clear blocked drains and sewers with their bare hands. Joey D’urso visits some of the beautiful central Italian towns that were partly destroyed by earthquakes in 2016. Have they and their inhabitants recovered? And Phoebe Smith finds herself lost for words as she struggles to describe the stirring in her soul prompted by a howling pack of wolves in Sweden.

Producer: Joe Kent

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the BBC.
0:03.0	Hello, today, are you pro pot or not?
0:07.0	Canada is preparing to legalize the recreational use of cannabis.
0:11.0	We speak to the campaigners who fear it'll spell the end of a
0:15.0	cherished counterculture. In India we hear why people are still sent down into the
0:20.3	sewers to clear block drains with their bare hands, nasty work claiming more than 70 lives a year.
0:28.4	How some of the most beautiful hilltop towns in Italy have been rebuilt or not following earthquakes in 2016 and in
0:37.2	Sweden we savour the magical sounds of wolves howling in the forest.
0:43.0	While a UN-backed government is nominally in power in Tripoli,
0:47.0	militias occupy much of the rest of Libya.
0:50.0	There's even been fighting in the capital itself recently between groups which all
0:55.0	claim to be aligned to the internationally recognised government. Amidst the
0:59.8	violence there were reports of a mass escape from one of the migrant detention
1:04.0	centers which housed some of the thousands of people who've been rounded up on the
1:08.5	streets or intercepted by the Libyan Coast Guard as they try to reach Europe.
1:14.0	Gaining access to these centres is difficult, but as Sally Hayden discovered,
1:18.8	that doesn't mean those inside them have given up on trying to get their stories out.
1:23.3	I was sitting at home on a Sunday afternoon
1:26.7	when the first Facebook message arrived.
1:29.3	Hi sister Sally, we need your help.
1:32.0	We are under bad condition in Libya prison. If you have time, I will
1:36.5	tell you all the story."
	...

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