BRITAIN, the European Union and Libya must be held accountable for human rights abuses committed against people trying to reach safety across their borders, refugees trapped in Libya told the Star today.

A group of around 1,600 people — mostly from Sudan, but also from South Sudan, Ethiopia and Eritrea — have been protesting daily outside a UN refugee agency (UNHCR) registration centre in the capital.

The protesters began gathering there at the beginning of October after a brutal police raid on the Gargaresh neighbourhood, in which about 4,000 people were violently rounded up and forced into the country’s condemned immigration detention centres.

“Life has been a real hell for us in Libya,” Yambio David Oliver, a 24-year-old South Sudanese refugee turned activist, told the Star today.

“We have lived through repeated circles of suffering, rapes, torture, arbitrary detentions, extortion and killings,” he said.

Mr Oliver and a large group of men, women and children have spent days camping outside the UNHCR building calling to be evacuated from the country.

The UNHCR closed the centre earlier this month, citing violence against its staff. The protesters, however, say any violence was started by the Libyan police. Either way, conditions outside the building are fraught.

“There is not a single toilet or bathroom for us,” Mr Oliver said. “There is no clean drinking water, no blankets or shelter, no food, no access to healthcare, no sanitary pads for women and diapers for children.

“The EU must be held accountable together with Libya for the crimes it has committed against persons trying to reach its borders.

“Britain has to revise its migration policy and Frontex [the European Border and Coastguard agency] should be abolished.

“The funding for the so-called Libyan coastguards must be stopped, and our brothers and sisters must be liberated from Libya’s detention centres.

“The people sleeping outside the UNHCR headquarters must be evacuated quickly. UNHCR Libya cannot do it without the help of other countries, including the Britain.

“We are begging them to offer more resettlement and evacuation slots to us and to help fight the crisis in Libya.”