In an overnight raid against human traffickers, the security authorities of Libya conducted an operation freeing around 385 Pakistani migrants locked up in trafficking warehouses.
According to the Associated Press, children were also among the rescued migrants, while the operation took place in the al-Khueir area, situated about 5 miles (8 kilometers) south of Tobruk, an eastern Libyan city.
Al-Abreen, a migrant rights group helping migrants in the country, said the individuals held captive were freed from the smugglers and subsequently taken to a nearby police headquarters.
Esreiwa Salah, an Al-Abreen activist, informed AP that the Pakistani migrants arrived in Libya with the intention to move towards their ultimate destination, Europe.
But the smugglers detained them and demanded ransom for release. The rights group did not, however, disclose any further details regarding the ransom.
For migrants, particularly those from Africa and the Middle East, aiming to reach Europe for greener pastures, Libya has become a key transit point.
The country has, however, fallen into turmoil following the NATO-backed uprising, which resulted in the end of its former autocratic ruler Moammar Gadhafi’s regime in 2011.
Libya has been struggling with instability for most of the last decade with rival governments in its eastern and western regions backed by various militias and foreign powers.
The deteriorating situation of chaos in the African nation has benefitted human traffickers who continue to smuggle desperate migrants — seeking better opportunities in Europe — across its borders from different countries, leaving their lives and well-being at risk, as they are smuggled using ill-equipped rubber boats and other vessels, through dangerous journeys on the Central Mediterranean Sea route.
In June this year, a marine vessel carrying around 700 migrants, including roughly 350 Pakistanis, capsized off the Greek coast. Only 104 people were rescued during an operation by local authorities, and 12 among them were survivors from Pakistan.
