Am really disgusted ...please open the link below.

Niamorkono

Africa   Migrants in Libya camp claim rape
Aid workers say they are taking seriously alleged sexual assaults of up to
two dozen women at camp for migrant workers.
 Evan Hill in Libya<http://english.aljazeera.net/profile/evan-hill-in-libya.html>Last
Modified: 29
Aug 2011 22:37

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/08/201182921437789463.html****

Al Jazeera Network

Migrant workers living in a squatter settlement outside Tripoli have claimed
that nearly two dozen women in the camp have been raped since opposition
forces began their final push on the capital two weeks ago.

At the abandoned fishing harbour about 27km west of Tripoli, Nigerian maids
Rose Johnson and Darcy Ikibueka said on Monday they are two of more than 20
women in the camp who have been raped by armed men whose identities and
affiliations remain unknown.

The names of the women have been changed to protect their identities.

The claims were bolstered by aid workers from Doctors Without Borders (MSF)
who gained access to the camp on Saturday. Simon Burroughs, MSF emergency
coordinator, said women had approached the staff with claims of rape and had
received counselling.
  <http://blogs.aljazeera.net/liveblog/libya>

Burroughs declined to say how many women had alleged rape or to discuss
their testimony, specifically the women’s accusations about who was
responsible.

"They're not free to talk about it. It’s the situation they're in,"
Burroughs said. "[But] we have to take the allegations seriously, we can’t
discount them. This is not the environment for the kind of care and
attention they need."

*Gunmen attack*

Sitting on plastic chairs in an unfinished, rubbish-filled concrete room
inside the decrepit harbour headquarters, Johnson, 25, and Ikibueka, 22,
told Al Jazeera of how they worked together in the same Tripoli household.
They had lived in Libya for two years and came to the port in June.

Like hundreds of other migrants from Nigeria, Chad, Senegal and other
impoverished African countries, they had fled to the camp to escape NATO
bombings and impending street battles.

The port had in recent months become a hub for human traffickers whose
business of smuggling migrants into Europe, usually by way of the Italian
island of Lampedusa, boomed when Gaddafi opened the illegal immigration
floodgates.

In an interview with the Italian radio station Rai, Hafez Gaddour, Libyan
ambassador to Italy, said Gaddafi controlled illegal immigration "in
person". The ambassador, who defected to the National Transitional Council
(NTC) earlier this year, added that the flood of immigrants was meant to
punish NATO nations for its bombing campaign.

These days, hundreds of men and women live in the shade of tilting fishing
boats. On Monday, the migrants were cooking goat heads over small wood
fires, braiding each other’s hair, and playing draughts with water bottle
caps. Many speculated on the whereabouts of friends and family lost in the
chaos of Tripoli.

On the night of August 19, gunmen entered the harbour camp. They fired their
guns in the air, shouting "God is great". That night, Johnson and Ikibueka
said, they were raped at gunpoint.

Anthony Ogiexeri , a 37-year-old* *Nigerian pastor who lives in the camp,
gave Al Jazeera this account:

"The came in, some of them they were shooting all around, and they ordered
girls to come out. [When] they came out, they laid them down. Some of them
were saying they should allow the girls [to] go, and some of them said, 'No,
they were going to rape them'. And at the end they submitted to the men, and
they raped them. And after they left."

*'Dark places'*

Johnson, Ikibueka and several male refugees alleged the attackers were
rebels who shouted slurs against Gaddafi. At the time of the alleged rapes,
the camp lay in contested territory.

But Ogiexeri said he could not tell who had carried out the attacks. It is
possible that forces on either side in the conflict, or even unallied
gunmen, could have stormed the harbour camp.

Rebel forces do not obey one single line of command, making it difficult to
determine what units where in the camp's vicinity at the time. Efforts to
reach representatives of the National Transitional Council on Monday night
were unsuccessful.

Regular visits from armed gangs have slowed in the three days since the MSF
team arrived, Burroughs said. Yet he was still concerned about the security
at the port and worried that publicising the women's testimony could lead to
reprisals.

Johnson and Ikibueka estimated that 25 to 30 women had been raped in the
camp. It was impossible to verify that number during Al Jazeera’s visit, but
an aid worker who declined to be named said it was close to the
organisation’s estimate.

Migrants and aid workers said the threat of violence still remains.

Some Libyans have donated food and supplies to the camp, but in recent days,
groups of armed men and boys have regularly entered the camp at night,
robbing the refugees of food and money.

They also take women away to use them for sex, Ogiexeri said.

"We try to connect lights so we can see ourselves at night, but they take
them to the dark places."
  Source:
Al Jazeera


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