The Libyan authorities announced that they had deported on Tuesday to Nigeria, in coordination with the International Organization for Migration, 165 Nigerian migrants, more than half of them women and children, as part of a voluntary return program implemented by the international organization.

Libyan authorities have "deported 165 illegal immigrants to Nigeria" on a special flight, Colonel Haitham Belqasim, spokesman for the Libyan Anti-Illegal Immigration Agency, told AFP.

He explained that among the deported immigrants were "90 women and nine children."

These women and their children were placed in a room at the headquarters of the Anti-Migration Agency in Tripoli, under the guard of policewomen who monitored the distribution of meals, drinks and travel necessities to them by the staff of the International Organization for Migration.

The migrants were deported from Tripoli's Mitiga International Airport on board a private Libyan airline, Al-Buraq.

According to Belkacem, "Other flights are scheduled to be organized next week to Nigeria."

Last week, the United Nations Support Mission in Libya expressed its concern about the "arbitrary detention" of thousands of migrants and asylum seekers in Libya, calling on the Libyan authorities to stop these measures and treat migrants with "dignity" and "humanity".

The security services in western and eastern Libya launched massive campaigns to arrest irregular migrants, and arrested thousands of them in different cities.

The United Nations says that migrants are arrested in an "arbitrary" manner and are often subjected to "killings, enforced disappearances and torture" or even to "slavery, sexual violence, rape and other inhumane acts."

The Libyan authorities deny these accusations, stressing that they do not resort to violence and that all migrants receive the necessary services and care for them in detention centers.

Since the fall of the Muammar Gaddafi regime in 2011, Libya has been mired in political divisions and conflicts.

Two governments are competing for power in the country: one that controls the west of the country and is based in Tripoli and headed by Abdul Hamid al-Dabiba and formed in early 2021, and another that controls the east of the country and is headed by Fathi Bashagha and appointed by Parliament last March and supported by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar.