53 Ghanaians In Libyan Jail

One of fifty-three Ghanaians being held in a Tripoli prison on suspicion of being mercenaries who fought on the side of pro-Gaddafi forces in the heat of the war to end the dictator�s regime has fired an SOS to Accra. Speaking on behalf of his colleagues - he said he is demanding a presidential intervention to save them from their predicament. Hassan Abdulai called 'Daily Guide' from +218917757087 to narrate the predicament he and his colleagues are going through at the hands of their Libyan captors who he said consider them as mercenaries. According to him, although 53 of them have Ghanaian passports there are other Ghanaians with no such travel documents also in the custody of the National Transitional Council (NTC) authorities. Hassan Abdulai, who claimed to hail from Tudu in Accra, said he has been in the Libyan capital for the past two and half years. �I am the grandson of a woman called Maikifi who lives in Tudu, Accra where I was born and bred. Please help us by publicizing our plight so that the necessary help can come to us. We are suffering and our embassy staffers are not helping us,� he told Daily Guide. According to him, �We have tried time without number to get the Ghana Embassy come to our aid as other missions have done for their nationals to no avail.� One of the staffers, a lady, in the mission, he alleged, warned them to desist from calling them, a warning which he said he found unusual and heart-breaking given the functions expected of the embassy. When the Libyan authorities asked them to contact their embassy to come to their aid, he said �we contacted them but their excuse was that anytime they came over they were turned away.� Nationals of other West African countries such as Ghana, Nigeria and others were arrested by anti-Gaddafi forces and paraded as mercenaries in the heat of the campaign in Tripoli, Al Zawiyah, Misrata and even Sirte. While it is true of some of the arrested persons, the same cannot be said of all of them because some of them got to Libya with the aim of proceeding to Europe from that end with no intention of getting embroiled in the strife in the North African country. Some of them went through the rather parlous trip across the inclement Sahara Desert to get to Libya but with war breaking out and lasting several months the adventurers could only regret their predicament. With their countries not forthcoming with assistance they can only fold their arms in despair expecting help from wherever this might come from as they pray to God to touch the hearts of their captors to have mercy on them. Pro-Gaddafi forces relied a great deal on Tuareg fighters from neighbouring Niger and other countries, a reality which made other dark skinned persons targets of anti-Gaddafi forces. International right groups had cause to complain about the treatment of dark skinned Africans as they became prey for prowling NTC fighters. Indeed many of such persons were beaten up and some lost their lives simply because of suspicion that they were mercenaries.