Gaddafi's African 'mercenaries' leaving Libya

[pampango]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-14693343

The United Nations has called on all sides in the Libyan conflict to prevent acts of revenge. African soldiers recruited by Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi have begun streaming home.

The head of the IOM in Benghazi, Martin Jerrett, said Africans were facing deep hostility in the capital, Tripoli. The IOM says there were over three million migrants working in Libya and there is little indication of how many will want to leave.

Many were recruited from among the former Tuareg rebels, some 4,000 of whom were unemployed after a peace deal ended their rebellion in 2009.

Last March, the BBC spoke to officials in Mali who said the Tuareg were being paid $10,000 to join the Libya government forces and a further $1,000 (£613) a day to fight. Western sources suggest that up to 10,000 Africans were recruited from countries including Sudan, Chad, Mali and Niger.


Increasingly desperate, these African troops who fought for Col Gaddafi, caught by rebel fighters

3 million migrants workers in a country with a population of 6 million? If that's anywhere near accurate, that is a lot of foreign workers.