38 human traffickers sentenced in Libya to prison terms for the sinking of a ship in the Mediterranean Sea

The court sentences five of the defendants to life imprisonment and another nine to terms of 15 years in prison

July 11 (EUROPA PRESS) –

A Libyan court has sentenced five people to life imprisonment and 33 others to jail for participating in a human trafficking network involved in a journey across the Mediterranean Sea that resulted in the deaths of eleven people after the sinking of your boat.

The Al Baida Court of Appeals, located in the east of the country, has sentenced nine of the defendants to 15 years in prison, while the other 24 have been sentenced to one year in prison, according to a statement published by the Libyan Prosecutor’s Office.

The document, published on the official page of the Prosecutor’s Office on its Facebook social network account, states that this human trafficking network organized the journey so that the migrants could reach European shores, without giving details about when the sinking took place. .

Libya, mired in instability since the capture and execution in 2011 of the country’s then leader, Muammar Gaddafi, has become in recent years one of the main transit points for migrants from countries in the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa trying to reach to European shores.

At least 1,875 migrants have died or have been reported missing so far this year trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea, according to data published by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) through its website.

The agency indicated on June 13 that it has registered a total of 3,789 deaths on migration routes within and from the Middle East and North Africa region between January and December 2022. This is the highest number since 2017, when 4,255 deaths were reported.