A former Nigerian government official has come forward to tell the story of how Libyan slave traders captured African migrants, and cooked them “like kebabs.”
Former minister of culture for Nigeria Femi Fani-Kayode said many migrants from Africa traveled to the Mediterranean to improve their lives but ended up being enslaved instead, International Business Times reported Wednesday.
Three out of four people captured by these gangs hail from southern Nigeria, Fani-Kayode said. Nigeria has the largest Christian population in Africa, according to Pew Research Center.
“75% of those sold into slavery in Libya who have their organs harvested, bodies mutilated and who are roasted like suya [a kebab] are from southern Nigeria,” Fani-Kayode wrote. “Roasted alive! This is what Libyans do to sub-saharan Africans who are looking for a transit point to Europe.”
Fani-Kayode attributed part of the carnage to the overthrow of former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. He argued removing Gaddafi created a power vacuum, that Libyan criminals were eager to fill.
“The greatest calamity that befell Africa in the last 20 years was the murder of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya,” he concluded.