VIDEO: Nigerian sold for $400, as refugees escaping Libya arrive in France

The French government stepped up its fight against slavery as the first group of refugees rescued from Libya touched down Tuesday in Paris from Niger.

France plans to take in 10,000 refugees by 2019, with 3,000 people coming from a resettlement programme in Niger and Chad, CNN said.

French President Emmanuel Macron announced the plan in the aftermath of CNN releasing video footage that showed migrants being sold into slavery in the North African country, some for as little as $400 each.

Further flights from Niger are expected to land Tuesday and Wednesday in Paris, with additional arrivals set for January.

On Tuesday, 25 people from Eritrea, Sudan and Ethiopia arrived at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport in the first flight out from Niger.

The prescreened group included 19 women and children, including a 2-month-old baby, and six men.
They will be housed in a convent in eastern France’s Alsace region for four months, where they will receive psychological support and instruction in French.

Then the nonprofit group France Horizon will help each individual find permanent housing.

After obtaining footage of a human auction in Libya, a CNN team traveled in October to that country to investigate.
It saw a dozen men sold at an auction outside the capital, Tripoli. The crew was told of auctions taking place at nine locations in the country.

Libyan authorities have launched a formal investigation into the auctions under the Anti-Illegal Immigration Agency.
France has been at the forefront of attempting to help those escaping slavery find a safe passage away from Libya.

In a speech last month following CNN’s release of the footage, Macron labeled the sale of migrants at slave auctions in the North African country as “a crime against humanity” and vowed to press for international sanctions against Libya.

News of the auctions sparked protests outside the Libyan Embassy in Paris.

The International Organization for Migration also says it will fly 15,000 more migrants home from detention centers in Libya before the end of 2017.

The UN migration agency says it has returned more than 14,007 migrants to their home countries this year already.

The United Nations estimates there are 700,000 migrants in Libya, and for years those who have crossed the Mediterranean have shared stories about beatings, kidnappings and enslavement.

On Monday, UNICEF announced that 36,000 children in Libya are in need of assistance and that 14,000 of them are unaccompanied.

Last week, Amnesty International accused European governments of being complicit in the torture and abuse of migrants and refugees in Libya.

In a new report, the human rights group criticized European governments for supporting efforts by the Libyan coast guard to prevent migrants from crossing the Mediterranean and returning them to camps in Libya.

Meanwhile, a Nigerian is said to be among many unidentified Africans being sold in Libya in a grainy cell phone video the Cable Network News (CNN) said it obtained.

The CNN in its report published on Tuesday said an auctioneer offered two people for sale at the rate of 1,200 Libyan dinars (an equivalent of $800), which amount to $400 per person.

Expressing shock over the development, the CNN lamented the sale as not for “a used car, a piece of land, or an item of furniture; not “merchandise” at all, but two human beings.

The CNN reporting said: “One of the unidentified men being sold in the grainy cell phone video obtained by CNN is Nigerian. He appears to be in his twenties and is wearing a pale shirt and sweatpants.

“He has been offered up for sale as one of a group of “big strong boys for farm work,” according to the auctioneer, who remains off camera. Only his hand resting proprietorially on the man’s shoulder is visible in the brief clip.”

The CNN said after seeing footage of this slave auction, it worked to verify its authenticity and traveled to Libya to investigate further.

Carrying concealed cameras into a property outside the capital of Tripoli last month, the CNN said it witnessed a dozen people go “under the hammer” in the space of six or seven minutes.

“Does anybody need a digger? This is a digger, a big strong man, he’ll dig.” “What am I bid, what am I bid?” the CNN quoted the salesman, dressed in camouflage gear, as saying.

The CNN said buyers raised their hands as the price rises, “500, 550, 600, 650 …” Within minutes it is all over and the men, utterly resigned to their fate, are being handed over to their new “masters.”

After the auction, the CNN said it met two of the men who had been sold. They were so traumatised by what they had been through that they could not speak, and so scared that they were suspicious of everyone they met.

“Each year, tens of thousands of people pour across Libya’s borders. They’re refugees fleeing conflict or economic migrants in search of better opportunities in Europe.

“Most have sold everything they own to finance the journey through Libya to the coast and the gateway to the Mediterranean.

“But a recent clampdown by the Libyan coastguard means fewer boats are making it out to sea, leaving the smugglers with a backlog of would-be passengers on their hands.

“So the smugglers become masters, the migrants and refugees become slaves,” CNN reported.