Nigerians tell of Libya horror

More than one million immigrants live in Libya

By Barnaby Phillips in Lagos

Thousands of Nigerians have been returning from Libya as part of an organised repatriation in the wake of widespread violence directed against immigrants from sub-Saharan African.

It was so fierce, it was so horrible, it was so terrible

Nigerian returnee

Several plane loads of Nigerians have already arrived at Lagos airport.

The returnees have been giving graphic accounts of the clashes in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, and other cities.

They say that many Nigerians were killed.

Angry and frightened

The hundreds of returnees who have arrived are angry and frightened at what has been happening in Libya in recent weeks

The violence is a blow to Gaddafi's "one Africa" policy

They said attacks on black Africans began at the beginning of September after an apparently trivial dispute in a crowd at a football match.

Many people gave detailed accounts of how Nigerians have been brutally killed.

They said the Libyan police had connived in the attacks, which continued even after the Nigerians had been moved into special camps.

One Nigerian told me that they did not want them there.

"It was so fierce, it was so horrible, it was so terrible that we, even, the ambassador himself, could not withstand the situation," he said.

Victims

The Nigerians are not the only victims of the violence.

Nationals of countries like Guinea, Cameroon, Niger and Chad have also suffered.

Deep-rooted racial tensions in Libya appear to have exploded.

But the returnees did not blame the Libyan leader, Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi, whom they described as a friend of black Africans.

Rather, they said Colonel Gaddafi could not control his own people's hostility towards them.