A Somali ringleader has been arrested.
The story is a few days old, but every time I see a story like this one I am reminded of now UN Ambassador Samantha Power who played a huge role with Hillary and Susan Rice in pushing the US into our ‘adventures’ in Libya supposedly under the belief that it was ‘our responsibility to protect’ the people of Libya from Gaddafi who was able at times to keep a lid on the human traffickers attempting to move through Libya. Now the Libyan coast is lawless.
From the Standart:
Italian police have arrested a Somali man accused of raping and torturing asylum seekers fleeing Libya on a boat which sank off the island of Lampedusa last month killing more than 365 migrants.
Mouhamud Elmi Muhidin, 34, faces charges of kidnapping, sexual assault, people trafficking and criminal association with the goal of aiding illegal immigration after he was identified by survivors.
Some 130 migrants from Eritrea told police they were held for ransom at a detention centre in the Libyan desert by people traffickers from Somalia, Libya and Sudan.
The migrants were forced to pay up to USD 3,500 for their freedom and their onward journey to the Libyan coast and a boat that due to take them to Italy.
Italian authorities have vowed to crack down on the people trafficking rings that have been behind the influx of more than 35,000 asylum seekers so far this year to the country’s coasts.
[….]
According to migrants’ testimony, the 20 women in the group were repeatedly raped and offered to Libyan visitors “as if they were a cup of tea”.
Photo is from this story in which the Eritrean government blames the US for the deaths.