Libya's Coast Guard Detains Almost 600 African Migrants

Libya's coast guard has detained almost 600 illegal African migrants, among them pregnant women and 18 children. Reuters reports that a security official says they had tried to sail to Europe on a fishing boat. The North African country has been gripped by violence and a breakdown of state authority four years after the ousting of Muammar Gaddafi. Now it has turned into a major hub for human traffickers smuggling African migrants by boat to Italy. Many thousands more have managed to make the crossing in an almost daily exodus of boats. Human rights groups say captured immigrants are held in often cramped detention centers in Libya, sometimes for months on end