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By Ashraf Abdul-Wahab.
Tripoli, 6 June 2014:
Over the past 48 hours some six hundred illegal immigrants have been detained in operations across . . .[restrict]Libya, highlighting the problem the country is having controlling its borders.
In Misrata this morning, police detained 130 illegal immigrants who were hiding inside a truck. All were reported to be Ethiopians.
In two separate incidents yesterday, the Coast Guard seized vessels carrying a total of 299 illegal immigrants bound for Europe. On one there were 185 people from various parts of Africa, including 31 women from Eritrea. Another 114, many from Senegal, were caught near Garabulli.
Also on Thursday, desert patrol guards from the Omar Mukhtar battalion in Tobruk seized 176 migrants who had entered Libya from Sudan. Those detained were of reported to be Eritrean, Egyptian, Somali and Sudanese.
Nine other Africans were also reportedly captured in Nalut yesterday.
All were taken to detention centres and will be returned to their countries of origin.
Nearly every week sees the capture of immigrants in Libya, although it is estimated that thousands more still manage to cross into Libya and make their way across the Mediterranean to the southern shores of Europe. [/restrict]
