THOUSANDS of refugees intercepted in the Mediterranean and returned to Libya have since been “forcefully disappeared,” Amnesty International reported today.

The liberal charity said that 8,500 people had been apprehended at sea and taken back to Libya between January 1 and September 14 this year, and that the total since 2016 is estimated at 60,000.

Thousands have been subjected to enforced disappearances in 2020, after being taken to unofficial detention centres in western Libya, including to the so-called Tobacco Factory in Tripoli, run by a government-allied militia, Amnesty said.

There, the migrants and refuges face a “constant risk” of being abducted by militias, armed groups and traffickers.

Authorities in eastern Libya, where General Khalifa Haftar’s forces support a rival administration, had forcibly expelled thousands of refugees without due process, it added, while citing cases in which militias dumped refugees in the desert and left them without assistance.

“The EU and its member states continue to implement policies trapping tens of thousands of men, women and children in a vicious cycle of abuse, showing a callous disregard for people’s lives and dignity,” said Amnesty’s deputy regional director Diana Eltahawy.

In the camps “some are tortured or raped until their families pay ransoms to secure their release. Others die in custody as a result of violence, torture, starvation or medical neglect.”

Ms Eltahawy said the EU should “completely reconsider” its co-operation with Libyan authorities and make “any further support conditional on immediate action to stop horrific abuses against refugees and migrants.”

Libya has been at war since the US-led Nato alliance helped Islamist rebels overthrow the Muammar Gadaffi government in 2011.