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| Africa North |
| Tripoli's zoo turned into migrant processing center |
| 2013-10-14 |
| There are so many migrants in Libya wanting to make the dangerous journey to Europe that the Tripoli zoo has been turned into a processing center for them. With the country's 22 refugee centers overwhelmed, the zoo – closed since the 2011 uprising – is being used to handle those picked up on the streets. More than 50 people are brought there daily. Said Ben Suleiman, deputy commander at the detention center said, "The numbers arriving here are changing in an unbelievable way. We deport ten and we find hundreds coming back." People smugglers stay one step ahead of the authorities. As police have stepped up their ability to catch smuggling gangs, so the smugglers have developed a new and dangerous way to avoid capture. Suleiman said, "Traffickers make sure they're nowhere near the migrants when the boats arrive to pick them up. What they do, they buy a cheap boat, then they give one of the migrants the keys, so the captain is chosen from among them. It means they go to sea with no training." He thinks this practice may have led to the Lampedusa boat disaster. However, he does not expect the disaster to deter would-be migrants. He said, "These guys don't care, all they are thinking is get to Europe." Many arrive in Tripoli unable to afford the journey. For those facing deportation it is hard to know what to feel: pity that all that hard travel has come to nothing, or relief they won't be attempting the perilous journey north. |
| Posted by:ryuge |