The U.N. Security Council has designated six human traffickers for international sanctions for their exploitation of thousands of migrants off Libya’s coast. The six men (4 Libyans and 2 Eritreans) head up criminal networks and militias that exploit sub-Saharan African migrants seeking to cross the Mediterranean to Europe and beyond
The sanctions will freeze their bank accounts and prohibit them from traveling internationally. The sanctions are the first of its kind imposed against leaders of violent human trafficking and people smuggling networks.
In November 2017, an exposé by cable news channel CNN broadcast video of smugglers in Libya auctioning off African migrants at a slave market, casting a spotlight on the abuse.
Among them are Mus’ab Abu-Qarin, who is accused of organizing an April 2015 crossing that ended in the shipwreck deaths of 800 people; Abd al Rahman al-Milad, who heads the regional unit of the Coast Guard in Zawiya and is believed to collaborate with the smugglers. The two Eritreans, Fitiwi Abdelrazak and Ermias Ghermay ae said to traffic tens of thousands of mostly Horn of Africa migrants to the coast of Libya and onward to Europe and the United States. Also listed are Libyan militia commanders Ahmad al-Dabbashi and Mohammed Kachlaf.
The six were forwarded to the Security Council by a member from the Netherlands in the first attempts to end the inhumane treatment of people in Libya and across the globe.
