Shipwreck migrant says dozens were raped and tortured

Dozens of asylum-seekers on a boat that sank near the Italian coast last month with the loss of 366 lives were raped and tortured in Libya before starting their journey, the police said yesterday.

A group of 130 migrants from Eritrea were held for ransom in the desert, according to testimony from survivors that led to the arrest of a Somali man in Italy accused of being one of the traffickers.

The Somali, Libyan militiamen, and Sudanese traffickers all took part in the alleged assaults in a detention centre in Sabha — an oasis in the desert in southwest Libya — that prosecutor Maurizio Scalia likened to “a concentration camp”.