Libya Migrant Raid Injures at Least 15, Kills 1 as 5,000 People Rounded Up in Crackdown

Libya's crackdown on migrants that began Friday led to at least 5,000 people, among them hundreds of women and children, being rounded up, according to a United Nations tally obtained by the Associated Press.

At least 15 were injured and one migrant was fatally shot during the raid in Gargaresh, the U.N. reported. The western town is a center for migrants in Libya as well as in surrounding areas. The tally from the U.N. showed 215 children and more than 540 women, 30 of them pregnant, were rounded up in the crackdown.

Authorities in Libya called the event a security operation against illegal migration and drug trafficking. The country has become a major transit hub for migrants fleeing conflict and poverty in Africa and the Middle East trying to reach Europe.

For more reporting from the Associated Press, see below.

Oil-rich Libya plunged into chaos after the 2011 NATO-backed uprising ousted and killed longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi.

Georgette Gagnon, the U.N.'s humanitarian coordinator for Libya, criticized the raids, in which unarmed migrants have been harassed in their homes, beaten and shot.

But the Interior Ministry, which led the crackdown, made no mention of any traffickers or smugglers being arrested. It has yet to address causalities among migrants and alleged abuses during the raids, including the use of lethal force, that have been raised by the U.N.

The U.N.'s International Organization for Migration report obtained by AP showed that 5,152 migrants have been detained in the raids since Friday. Those numbers are likely to increase, the report said, as the crackdown continues in several parts of the area, also known as the Andalus neighborhood.

Authorities have distributed the migrants to detention centers in the capital of Tripoli, the IOM's document said. At least 4,187 of the detainees, including 511 women and 60 children, were sent to the Mabani detention center, well over its capacity. The Abu Salim center received at least 570 migrants, it said.

At least 390 others were taken to Share al-Zawiya detention center, including the 30 pregnant women and 155 children, the document showed. The center has already 182 migrants intercepted previously on the Mediterranean Sea, it said.

These detention centers are rife with abuses, according to rights activists. AP also reported in June that guards at Share al-Zawiya sexually assaulted young Somali female migrants.

The European Union, which has come under fire for its support of Libya's domestic efforts to stem migrant crossings in the past, condemned the use of violence in the recent crackdown. EU spokeswoman Nabila Massrali said the union had long been calling on Libya to find an alternative to the system of arbitrary detentions in managing the migrant population.

"While fully supportive of Libyan sovereignty, the EU also strongly encourages Libyan authorities to refrain from the use of lethal force in these operations," she said.

Alexandra Saieh, Libya advocacy manager for the Norwegian Refugee Council, said refugees and migrants in different parts in Libya have been scared to leave their homes, for fear of being detained.

"People are quite horrified," she said. "This is really a wake-up call to the dire situation that exists in Libya for migrants and refugees and the international community must step up."