"Dozens of people who were put under pressure to leave a failing EU-funded UN refugee agency centre in Tripoli have used smugglers to cross the sea to Italy in the last month, according to refugees and aid workers.
One Somali man who spoke to the Guardian said he was among a group of more than 50 who left Libya in November and December and were rescued by ships including the Ocean Viking, the Médecins Sans Frontières and SOS Méditerranée ship, in the Mediterranean. He is now in Italy.
Those rescued with him included pregnant women and children. The group were moved to the Tripoli UNHCR centre following the Tajoura detention centre bombing six months ago, he said. Within months they allegedly came under pressure to leave again, as the centre became overcrowded and the UN rejected them for evacuation.
'Now I cannot hear the name UNHCR because they do not help people,' said the Somali man in Italy, who – like other refugees interviewed – asked not to be named due to security fears. He said the people remaining in the UN centre are the most vulnerable – sick people who can't take to sea or people without money. 'Those who cannot run and walk, the children, those with tuberculosis,' he added...
The UN gathering and departure facility (GDF) opened in December 2018 as an 'alternative to detention'... it has been mired with problems, including growing control by militia leaders, who are reportedly profiting from it.
In December, the Associated Press reported that millions of euros in contracts for food and aid for the centre went to a company linked to militia leader Mohammed al-Khoja..."