Slave market in Libya. They started as immigrants, many from Nigeria. ..


Exclusive report
People for sale
Where lives are auctioned for $400


By Nima Elbagir, Raja Razek, Alex Platt and Bryony Jones

Tripoli, Libya (CNN) -- "Eight hundred," says the auctioneer. "900 ... 1,000 ... 1,100 ..." Sold. For 1,200 Libyan dinars -- the equivalent of $800.

Not a used car, a piece of land, or an item of furniture. Not "merchandise" at all, but two human beings.
One of the unidentified men being sold in the grainy cell phone video obtained by CNN is Nigerian. He appears to be in his twenties and is wearing a pale shirt and sweatpants.

He has been offered up for sale as one of a group of "big strong boys for farm work," according to the auctioneer, who remains off camera. Only his hand -- resting proprietorially on the man's shoulder -- is visible in the brief clip.

After seeing footage of this slave auction, CNN worked to verify its authenticity and traveled to Libya to investigate further.
Carrying concealed cameras into a property outside the capital of Tripoli last month, we witness a dozen people go "under the hammer" in the space of six or seven minutes.
"Does anybody need a digger? This is a digger, a big strong man, he'll dig," the salesman, dressed in camouflage gear, says. "What am I bid, what am I bid?"
Buyers raise their hands as the price rises, "500, 550, 600, 650 ..." Within minutes it is all over and the men, utterly resigned to their fate, are being handed over to their new "masters."


After the auction, we met two of the men who had been sold. They were so traumatized by what they'd been through that they could not speak, and so scared that they were suspicious of everyone they met...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzLNnlKR960

It's really very shameful for this kind of thing to exist in the 21st century AD. Who is doing this act? Is it the Gov't or the locals?

when these human traffickers were sending these sameAfricans migrants at the bottom of the mediterranean sea (for years), nobody was saying anything.... so why should any of you hypocrite care if they are now sold as slaves..... are you saying they are better dead than slaves?!

the problem didnt start today, and certainly didnt start in Lybia. it start right at home where these same deluded migrants think it was ok to give money to HUMAN TRAFFICKERS to go to Europe, and got fooled by these same traffickers who in turn sold them into slavery. you cant sleep next to the devil and NOT expect to get fukced.

BOTH traffickers AND migrants should be blamed!

Hati13:
It's really very shameful for this kind of thing to exist in the 21st century AD. Who is doing this act? Is it the Gov't or the locals?

Its the agents/ traffickers etc.

They sell them, allegedly, to pay themselves back for trafficking money. But its not accidental. Its seems an Arabic culture to intentionally create debt and use slavery as punishment against their debtors. A lot of women in places like Qatar and Saudi Arabia are doing that to their African house helps. They break a vase, the owner says the vase was more expensive than them so they bind them in slavery for the rest of their lives. Others, like the migrants are told that their employers paid a lot of money to bring them to the middle East so they pay back by being enslave.

Arabs seem to believe that Africans were created to serve them.

Article text by Julia DUMONT

Rwanda has offered to provide refuge to as many as 30,000 African migrants suffering slave-like conditions in Libya, the foreign ministry announced Wednesday.

A week after US network CNN broadcast an exposé of a slave auction of African migrants in Libya, the fallout of the shocking footage has gripped the continent and the international community.

On Wednesday, just as France was calling for an emergency UN meeting over slave-trading in Libya, Rwanda announced that it was willing to provide refuge to around 30,000 African migrants suffering abuse in Libya.

"Rwanda is currently under discussions... to see how we can help in welcoming migrants held captive in Libya," Rwandan Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo told AFP. "It has just been decided, so numbers and means are still under discussion, but Rwanda estimates the number to be welcomed is around 30,000," she said, adding that this figure "is not confirmed yet but an estimation".

The AU issues an appeal

Rwanda’s offer followed a call by the AU (African Union) for help across the continent. "I appeal to all member states of the African Union, the African private sector and African citizens to make financial contributions to help alleviate the suffering of African migrants in Libya," said AU Commission chairman Moussa Faki Mahamat on Tuesday. "I urge member states that have logistical means to make them available to facilitate the evacuation of African migrants who wish to leave Libya."

Responding to Rwanda’s offer, Mahamat said he was “deeply appreciative” of the offer, in a Twitter post.

View this content on France 24 site
Speaking to AFP, Mushikiwabo noted that, "Given Rwanda's political philosophy and our own history, we cannot remain silent when human beings are being mistreated and auctioned off like cattle."

"What the [Rwandan foreign] minister wants to say is that Rwanda itself has experienced tragedies,” explained Félix Tchicaya, referring to the 1994 genocide, in which around 800,000 people, mostly Tutsi, were killed. “The country now has a virtuous political philosophy according to which, she [Mushikiwabo] could not ignore the tragedy of this slavery,” he explained. "But she could have said it three weeks ago, she probably had the information, like millions of people. It is good that Rwanda has reacted, but it would be better if it sparks a response [by African governments] to address the daily problems faced by African citizens,” that Félix Tchicaya noted, lies at the root of the migration problem.

(With AFP)