a man addressing an unseen crowd big strong boys for farm work he says four
hundred seven hundred eight hundred the numbers roll in these men are sold for
twelve hundred Libyan pounds four hundred dollars apiece you are watching
an auction of human beings another man claiming to be a buyer
off camera someone asks what happened to the ones from the share sold off he's
told CNN was sent this footage by a contact after months of working we were
able to verify the authenticity of what you see here we decided to travel to
Libya to try and see for ourselves
we're now in Tripoli and we're starting to get a little bit more of a sense of
how this all works our contacts are telling us that there are one to two of
these auctions every month and that there is one happening in the next few
hours so we're going to head out of town and see if we can get some sort of
access to it for the safety of our contacts we have agreed not to divulge
the location of this auction but the town we're driving to isn't the only one
night falls we travel through nondescript suburban neighborhoods
pretending to look for a missing person
eventually we stopped outside a house like any other adjust our secret compass
and wait
finally it's time to move well I should enter one of two auctions happening on
this same night crouched at the back of the yard a floodlight
obscuring much of the scene one by one men are poor south as the bidding begins
400 500 550 600 650 700 very quickly it's over we ask if we can speak to the
men the auctioneer seen here refuses we ask again if we can speak to them we can
help them no he says the auctions are over were to leave that was over very
quickly we walked in and as soon as we walked in the men started covering their
faces but they clearly wanted to finish what they were doing and they kept
bringing out what they kept referring to in Arabic as Abu Dharr the merchandise
all in all they admitted to us that there were 12 nazareans that were sold
in front of us and thank you I honestly don't know what to say that was probably
one of the most unbelievable things I've ever seen
these men are migrants with dreams of being smuggled to Europe they come in
their thousands from Nazaire Mali Nigeria Ghana it's hard to believe that
these are the lucky ones rescued from warehouses like the one in which we
witnessed the auction their sold if those warehouses become overcrowded
or if they run out of money to pay their smugglers of these rescued men so many
here say they were held against their will
it doesn't take us long to find victory
victory was a slave we know that some people are being sold yes some people
are being sold is this something you've heard about can you know I was sued on
our economy I was sued Methodist beat if you look at most of who you are but you
see the mark their beauty with electric even your boot or their children to
socialize a project or a son most of the laws they are like they're on I was the
best looking to be me giving my money they took me so the money was not even
much other migrants now start to come forward with their stories I'm no be
much it you know
but I promise you I would Anna Salai sabi is the supervisor here with no
international support it's his job to look after the captured migrants until
they can be deported he says every day brings fresh heartbreak I'm suffering
for him I am suffering for them what I have seen here daily believe me and make
me really feel pain for them they come and every story is a special case few
they were they was abusing them fuze they called their money there is nothing
is obvious in front of us we don't have evidence but we now do cNN has delivered
this evidence the Libyan authorities who have promised to launch an investigation
so that scenes like this are returned to the Past never bothers CNN
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