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Tamim Jaboudi is nearly three-years-old. The young Tunisian is said to be stranded in a prison in neighbouring Libya and his grandfather, Faouzi Jaboudi, claims to have made repeated bids to gain his release.

Tamims parents are believed to have left Tunisia to join ISIL. Reports differ on their fate, but he is said to be alone.

The first time we met at the guards offices he didnt want to approach me. He hugged the warden there, who he knows very well and is used to. They told me that they love Tamim and feel for him because his parents arent there, said Faouzi.

He says Tamim is being raised in detention in Tripoli by a woman who willingly joined ISIL.

They and dozens of other women and children are said to be being held by RADA, the Libyan Special Forces of Deterrence which are currently allied with the UN-backed government in the Libyan capital.

But Tripoli and Tunis are reportedly not communicating about those held.

NGO the Rescue Association of Tunisians Trapped Abroad, is working to help those stranded.

ISIL works on three levels: short, medium and long term. In the short term, it worked on recruitment getting young people to leave their country for Libya, and especially Syria and Iraq. After that, it was the departure of entire families, said Mohammed Iqbel, the head of the NGO.

Tunisian authorities recently agreed to visit the detention centre, but have questioned how many of those held are actually Tunisian. Human Rights Watch says none of the detainees have valid ID papers, meaning Tamims future remains unclear.

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Questions over detention of Tunisians in Libya - euronews

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We have lost the Christian presence in Libya, said Professor Mariz Tadros during a Christian persecution conference on Thursday at the National Press Club.

Religious pluralism as it existed [in Libya] is over, she added.

Before the 2011 revolution that resulted in the overthrow and execution of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, as many as 100,000 Christians, mainly members of the Coptic Church, resided in Libya,reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

As of 2013, before the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) appeared in the North African nation, a few thousand Christians remained, added AFP, citing church officials.

At one point, Libyas coastal city of Sirte, where Gaddafi was killed, was ISISs largest stronghold outside of its so-called caliphate in Iraq and Syria.

ISIS jihadists targeted members of the Christian minority in Libya as it did in other countries.

In February 2015, the terrorist group decapitated 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians on a Libyan beach, prompting worldwide condemnation.

These beheadings accounted for a mere twenty-one of the 7,100 Christians whom Open Doors estimates died for their faith in 2015, points out a report released by the University of Notre Dames Under Caesars Sword project on global Christian communities during the conference Thursday.

The report, titled In Response to Persecution, assessed Libya to host a high level of Christian persecution.

Christians face violence at the hands of Muslim militants. Especially in Egypt and Libya, this violence has increased as a result of the Arab Uprisings of 2011, it notes adding:

While Christians generally enjoyed freedom from heavy discrimination and a decent level of liberty to worship and practice under the regime of Muammar Gaddafi, Christians security disappeared when this dictator fell and Libya was beset with lawlessness. Militias and tribal groups were empowered, including Muslim groups like Ansar al Shariah, al-Nusra, the Islamic State, and the Muslim Brotherhood. At their hands, Christians suffered assaults on churches, violence against clergy, abductions, and numerous other forms of violence.

Libya has been gripped by chaos since the fall of Gaddafi, providing fertile grounds for jihadists to flourish.

While the persecution report mentions that Christians still make up between 3 percent and 5 percent of the population and are mostly migrant workers from outside the country, the Open Doors USA organization estimates that less than one percent (20,000) of the Muslim-majority countrys 6.4 million people are Christians.

As anarchy took hold in Libya, many Copts and other Christians at first tried to avoid abductions while remain-ing in the country, often living like fugitives, notes the report released Thursday. Eventually, a mass exodus ensued, with more than 200,000 Christians leaving Libya between 2011 and 2015, it is estimated.

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Expert: 'We Have Lost the Christian Presence in Libya' - Breitbart - Breitbart News

Libya's Liquidity Crunch and the Dinar's Demise: Psychological and Macroeconomic Dimensions of the current crisis Libya Herald Libya faces an ever-worsening currency and liquidity crisis which cannot be surmounted without a stable political solution that definitively concludes the struggle for power and legitimacy ongoing since 2014. Yet, the root of the crisis lies not in ...

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Libya's Liquidity Crunch and the Dinar's Demise: Psychological and Macroeconomic Dimensions of the current crisis - Libya Herald

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Trump Joins Criticism of Iran; Questions US Role in Libya Wall Street Journal (subscription) WASHINGTONPresident Donald Trump, adding to strong criticism of the Iran nuclear deal voiced by his administration, said on Thursday that Tehran is not living up to the spirit of the agreement. His comments, in a joint press conference with Italy's ...

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Trump Joins Criticism of Iran; Questions US Role in Libya - Wall Street Journal (subscription)

I was horrified when I read the International Organization for Migration (IOM) report last week on sub-Saharan Africans being sold and bought in open markets in Libyabut I was not surprised.

During a recent visit to Italy, I spoke with dozens of men and women from East and West Africa who recently arrived in Sicily from Libya. They recounted extreme acts of cruelty at the hands of human smugglers, members of the Libyan coastguard, state-run detention center workers and locals.

I was sold twice, a young man from Guinea told me on the tiny island of Lampedusa, just days after he arrived by boat from Libya. I was sold to an Arab man who forced me to work and told me to call my family so they would send money. He sold me to another Arab man who forced me to work for him, too. The young man was only able to leave once his family sent enough money to free him.

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Read more: African migrants smuggled into Libya are being sold at 'modern-day slave markets'

The slave trade affects women, too. A young woman from Nigeria told me: As a female, you cant walk alone in the street. Even if they dont shoot you, [if] youre black, theyll just take you and sell you. One man, also from Guinea, said that women are more expensive to buy than men.

Women also face shocking levels of sexual abuse. A United Nations official told me that of the migrants and asylum seekers in Libya, almost every woman has been sexually abused.

In this context, it is astounding that the European Unionis working hard to keep people off its shores, even if it means leaving them in Libya. As outlined in a declaration in Malta in February, EU heads of state have promised to train and equip the Libyan coastguard and are hoping to ensure [there are] adequate reception capacities and conditions in Libya for migrants.

With summer weather approachingbringing better conditions for crossing the Mediterraneanthe EU and its member states are working with a sense of urgency that is palpable.

Training the Libyan coastguard is a welcome move if it contributes to saving lives and treating those rescued with humanity and respect. But the question of what happens after they are rescued is key: People are currently taken to detention centers where they are held in inhuman conditions.

Describing such centers, asylum seekers and migrants told me they had been beaten and forced to ask their relatives for money, that sometimes those who could not pay were shot, and that they were hardly fed at all. In addition, the collusion between smugglers and people running some detention centres is no secret.

Absent from the EU plan is what happens to people who fled their homes because of violence or persecution. Many of those arriving in Italy via Libya are in this category, among them Eritreans, Somalis, Sudanese, and people fleeing other countries because it is unsafe for them, often because of their political activities or sexual orientation.

The EU is focused on increasing the number of people returning from Libya to their country of origin, but there does not seem to be any consideration for those who cannot do so safely.

Despite the ongoing chaos and violence in Libya there is an absencewith very few exceptionsof international staff, including those from the EU, the U.N., and humanitarian organizations on the ground. As such, the idea that the situation for migrants and asylum seekers will dramatically improve in the coming months is utterly unrealistic.

One Eritrean man told me that its better to die in the sea than to stay in Libya. Smugglers had chained him to the ground by the ankles for three days when he was unable to pay the money they demanded. It is little surprise that for people like him, risking their lives crossing the Mediterranean seems like the only option.

Izza Leghtas is Senior Advocate for Europe at Refugees International. Leghtas is the author of an upcoming report on the treatment of asylum seekers and migrants in Libya due out this May. Follow her on Twitter @IzzaLeghtas

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'It Is Better To Die Than Stay In Libya:' Libya's Slave Markets Remind Us of Flaws in EU Migration Plans - Newsweek