Women migrants in Libya often confront gang-rape or watch others adducted to be abused: UN Report

A report released by the United Nations gives a spine-chilling figure claiming that the 'overwhelming majority' of women and older girls who passed through Libya as migrants reported being gang-raped by traffickers or witnessed others taken away to be abused. The UN's report released on December 20 is backed by hundreds of interviews.

The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said its report, along with the U.N. support mission in Libya, turned up "unimaginable horrors" among migrants who seek to reach Europe the through the largely lawless country. The report covers January 2017 to August 2018.

A statement said investigators pulled together 1,300 first-hand accounts detailing "a terrible litany of violations and abuses committed by a range of state officials, armed groups, smugglers and traffickers against migrants and refugees."

Those included unlawful killings, torture, arbitrary detention, gang rape, slavery, forced labor and extortion.

The report comes as European Union leaders pursue efforts to beef up the bloc's external borders to stop large numbers of migrants from entering Europe. Many migrants who have been caught trying to cross the Mediterranean have been returned to Libya — and put in detention centers.

This story has been corrected to say the majority either were gang-raped or witnessed others being taken to be abused, not that all were gang-raped themselves, which was based on an incorrect UN press release.