A Bangladeshi accused of trafficking in human beings was arrested on Monday in Dhaka after the murder in Libya of 30 migrants, killed in retaliation for the murder of a Libyan smuggler, police said.
Twenty-six Bangladeshis and four Africans were killed in Libya by family members of a 30-year-old Libyan smuggler after his assassination by "illegal migrants" for unknown reasons, the Tripoli government said last week.
Read also: Migrants: in the Mediterranean, the fear of a massacre "out of sight"
Authorities accuse Kamal Uddin, 55, of being "the mastermind" of human trafficking, the victims of which are Bangladeshi villagers. "He admitted to having links with the international traffickers involved in the incident," police spokesman Sujoy Kumar Roy told AFP. "Kamal Uddin has smuggled over 400 Bangladeshis" into Libya in the past 10-12 years, police said.
Bangladesh has called on the Libyan government of national unity (GNA), recognized by the United Nations, to investigate the killings, punish the perpetrators and compensate the victims.
Young people, the main victims
This episode highlighted the trafficking of young people in Bangladesh, who are smuggled into Libya before they set sail for Europe.
Tens of thousands of young Bangladeshis have attempted the perilous crossing of the Mediterranean in recent years, and the number of smugglers who exploit them by extorting large sums of money has increased.
See also: Migrants: crossings of the English Channel by canoe on the rise
"At least 700 Bangladeshis have been arrested by the Libyan coast guard during this pandemic" of new coronavirus, which gives an idea of the real number of Bangladeshis who attempt these perilous journeys, "said Tasneem Siddiqui, manager of a study group on migration.
When an AFP correspondent visited the rural town of Beanibazar in 2016, a city councilor said that thousands of young people paid traffickers up to $ 12,000 for a trip to Italy. But many were sold as slaves in Libya, he said.