A Nepali man has been killed in the airstrike that hit Tajoura detention center for migrants near the Libyan capital of Tripoli early Wednesday.
Santosh Shrestha, 27, of Bensisahar-11, Lamjung was killed in the airstrike that killed at least 43 other persons, the Nepali Embassy in Cairo said citing the International Organization of Migration (IOM). He was announced dead in the hospital.
Shrestha had reached Libya paying some money to brokers a few months back but could not earn good money there. Brokers there told him he can earn more in Europe.
He had called home and asked for Rs 600,000. "We had sent Rs 600,000 to pay to the brokers in Italy a month back," Shrestha's younger sister Anita told Setopati over the phone. "He had told us that police in Malta can detain him for around three months and he may be out of contact. We thought that he may have reached Malta."
The family had assumed that he may already have reached Malta or Italy from Libya but he was detained in the detention center for migrants near Tripoli with others who try to illegally enter Europe through Libya.
Issuing a press statement, the embassy said eight other Nepali nationals were rescued from Libya and sent to Nepal via Turkey on Wednesday. "There are six other Nepalis in IOM camp in Tripoli. We are trying to send them to Nepal at the earliest," the statement added.
The IOM had asked for Shrestha's travel document two days ago, according to the statement. The embassy says it had sent the documents to the IOM in Egypt to be sent to IOM in Libya as courier service takes long time to dispatch the documents to war-torn Libya.
The embassy stated that 26 Nepalis have been rescued and sent back in the last two months and eight more will be sent on Thursday. Most of them were brought to Libya by the human traffickers to be sent to Italy from Libya. "The Nepali peacekeeping Mission in Libya is cooperating and coordinating on all these matters," the statement said.
The UN human rights chief, meanwhile, has said the airstrike could amount to a war crime.
The Tripoli-based government blamed the attack on forces associated with Gen. Khalifa Hifter, whose Libyan National Army has been waging an offensive against rival militias in the capital of the war-torn North African country since April, the Associated Press reported.
It refocused attention and raised questions about the European Union’s policy of cooperating with the militias that hold migrants in crowded and squalid detention centers to prevent them from crossing the Mediterranean to seek better lives in Europe. Most of them were apprehended by the Libyan coast guard, which is funded and trained by the EU to stem the flow of migrants.
At the United Nations, the Security Council held a closed emergency session on the airstrike in Tripoli’s Tajoura neighborhood, and Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for an independent investigation.
Hifter’s forces said they were targeting a nearby military site, not the detention center. There also were suspicions of involvement by foreign countries allied with his forces. Countries assisting Hifter include Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Russia.
Two migrants interviewed by The Associated Press said the airstrike hit a compound that houses a weapons warehouse and an adjacent detention center holding about 150 migrants, including several Sudanese and Moroccans. The two spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.
