Libya torture claims as aid agency halts work
Source: Agencies |
January 27, 2012, Friday
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Print Edition
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AID agency Medecins Sans Frontieres has halted its work in detention centers in a Libyan city because it said its medical staff were being asked to patch up detainees midway through torture sessions so they could go back for more abuse.
Rights groups have repeatedly raised concerns about torture being used against people, many of them sub-Saharan Africans, suspected of having fought for Moammar Gadhafi's forces during Libya's nine-month civil war.
The agency said it was in Misrata, about 200 kilometers east of the capital, Tripoli, and scene of some of the fiercest battles in the conflict, to treat war-wounded detainees but was instead having to treat fresh wounds from torture.
"Patients were brought to us in the middle of interrogation for medical care, in order to make them fit for more interrogation," Christopher Stokes, the agency's general director, said.
"This is unacceptable. Our role is to provide medical care to war casualties and sick detainees, not to repeatedly treat the same patients between torture sessions."
The agency said it had raised the issue with the authorities in Misrata and with the national army.
"No action was taken," said Stokes. "We have therefore come to the decision to suspend our medical activities in the detention centers."
Rights groups have repeatedly raised concerns about torture being used against people, many of them sub-Saharan Africans, suspected of having fought for Moammar Gadhafi's forces during Libya's nine-month civil war.
The agency said it was in Misrata, about 200 kilometers east of the capital, Tripoli, and scene of some of the fiercest battles in the conflict, to treat war-wounded detainees but was instead having to treat fresh wounds from torture.
"Patients were brought to us in the middle of interrogation for medical care, in order to make them fit for more interrogation," Christopher Stokes, the agency's general director, said.
"This is unacceptable. Our role is to provide medical care to war casualties and sick detainees, not to repeatedly treat the same patients between torture sessions."
The agency said it had raised the issue with the authorities in Misrata and with the national army.
"No action was taken," said Stokes. "We have therefore come to the decision to suspend our medical activities in the detention centers."
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