Aman against Discrimination condemns and denounces the systematic targeting of Toubou families residing in the Chinese construction project in Umm al-Aranib. On August 25th, armed groups violated the sanctity of safe houses, looted their property, assaulted them, detained and illegally transported hundreds of men, women, and children by trucks in an inhumane manner to the Tamanhint military base north of the city of Sebha. An estimated fifty military vehicles under the Tariq bin Ziyad and 128 battalions of the General Command of the Libyan National Army in the east of the country participated in the operation.
In interviews with members of the arrested families, we found that the attack on residential homes on Friday morning occurred after the project was surrounded. We also monitored the random arrests of Nigerien Hausa workers on public roads and in their homes outside the project.
These incidents are not the first in Umm al-Aranib, as an armed group affiliated with the General Command besieged the project and cut off its water in 2018. On November 28th 2019, the project was targeted by drone strikes, which resulted in the killing of 12 civilians, which was claimed by the General Command through its spokesperson.
These practices, committed under the pretext of combating terrorism and Chadian gangs, are nothing but ethnic-cleansing operations, which are contrary to international covenants, local and humanitarian laws.
Accordingly, we call on the General Command to immediately stop these operations, release the arrested, and reveal the fate of the missing. We call on the human rights offices in the Ministries of Interior and Justice, the United Nations Support Mission in Libya, local and international organizations and the international community to assume its responsibilities towards these practices.
#Libya
