UN Demands Accountability After Tripoli Migrant Center Attack Kills 40 

The United Nations Network on Migration condemned the bombing of a refugee and migrant detention center in Tripoli on Monday that killed at least 40 people and wounded many more, calling on Libyan authorities to investigate the attack and protect migrants from the country’s ongoing armed conflict. 

Thousands of migrant women, men, girls, and boys remain detained across Libya, where the UN has documented degrading, inhumane, and unsafe conditions. Reported abuses include torture, ill-treatment, forced labor, enforced disappearance, and rape, along with inadequate access to food and essential medical care. 

Calling the attack a breach of international law, the UN network urged all Libyan actors to safeguard migrants on territory they control or under their authority and take measures to protect them and other civilians from the fighting. 

Libyan authorities, regional allies, and the international community should confront broader abuses against migrants, the network said. The UN Network on Migration called for a thorough investigation into the bombing and for those responsible to be held accountable. 

Beyond Libya, the organization raised concerns about the growing use of immigration detention around the world, particularly when migrants are held for prolonged periods in inhumane conditions. 

Many people undertake long and dangerous journeys in pursuit of better lives but ultimately face criminalization and detention instead of receiving appropriate protection and assistance, according to the network. 

States should end unnecessary and arbitrary immigration detention and address substandard conditions in detention facilities, including overcrowding and inadequate access to food, hygiene, and health services, it said. 

Families separated through immigration detention should be reunited immediately, while children should never be detained because of their own or their parents’ migration status. Migrant women, men, girls, and boys are entitled to appropriate protection and care based on individual assessments and in accordance with international human rights law. 

UN offices participating in the network are working on humanitarian evacuations and assistance, protection programs for migrants, including women and children, and voluntary return and reintegration assistance. 

Those efforts are part of the network’s work to protect migrant lives and advance the principles and objectives of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration.