CAIRO (Reuters) – The U.N. Libya mission expressed on Tuesday its alarm over what it said was footage circulating on social media featuring “brutal torture and ill-treatment” of detainees at the Gernada detention facility in eastern Libya.
Reuters was unable to immediately independently verify the reported videos.
“As UNSMIL continues to verify the circumstances of the circulated footage, it strongly condemns these acts that constitute serious violations of international human rights law,” it said.
The U.N. mission said the footage was consistent with what it described as “documented patterns of human rights violations in detention facilities across Libya.”
It also called for an immediate investigation into the accusations, adding that it is coordinating with the General Command of Libyan National Army for “unrestricted access to UNSMIL’s human rights officers and other independent monitors to the Gernada facility as well as other detention centres under their control.”
There was no immediate comment from Libyan authorities over the circulating videos.
The North African country has plunged into chaos and lawlessness after the toppling the regime of former dictator Muammar Gaddafi in NATO-backed uprising in 2011.
(Reporting by Cairo Newsroom; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)
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