By SAMY MAGDY, CAIRO (AP):- Eastern Libyan authorities have sent hundreds of Sudanese back to their war-torn home country, officials said Saturday, in a crackdown on migrants seeking to flee conflict and poverty for Europe by way of the the Mediterranean nation.
Seven hundred Sudanese who were detained recently in central and southeastern Libya, were deported Friday by land to Sudan, the Directorate for Combating Illegal Migration in eastern Libya said in a statement.
The statement said some of the deportees suffered from infectious diseases including hepatitis and AIDS. Others were deported because of either criminal convictions or “security reasons,” it said, without elaborating.
The deportation was part of an ongoing crackdown campaign on migrant trafficking in eastern Libya, which is controlled by forces of powerful military commander Khalifa Hifter.
Last week, the coast guard in eastern Libya said it intercepted a boat carrying 80 Europe-bound migrants off the eastern city of Tobruk.
The campaign includes raids on trafficking hubs across eastern and southern Libya. A raid earlier this month freed 104 Sudanese migrants, including women and children, who were held in a trafficking warehouse in the town of Ajdabiya, about 480 miles (800 kilometers) east of the capital, Tripoli, according to town security authorities.
Libya has in recent years become a transit point for those fleeing wars and poverty in the Middle East and Africa, and seeking a better life in Europe. Human traffickers have benefited from more than a decade of instability, smuggling migrants across Libya’s borders with six nations, including Chad, Niger, Sudan Egypt, Algeria and Tunisia.
The North African country was plunged into chaos following a NATO-backed uprising that toppled and killed longtime autocrat Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. Oil-rich Libya has been ruled for most of the past decade by rival governments in eastern and western Libya, each backed by an array of militias and foreign governments.
Thousands of Sudanese have fled to Libya since their country plunged into chaos in April 2023 after simmering tensions between the Sudanese military and a powerful paramilitary group exploded into street fighting across the country.
They are among the more than 240,000 Sudanese migrants who live in Libya, according to the U.N.’s International Organization for Migration.