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This file photo taken on April 01, 2017 shows migrants from West Africa waiting in a room at a "ghetto" in Agadez, northern Niger, as they wait to go to Libya from where they will attempt to reach Europe by crossing the Mediterranean sea. ISSOUF SANOGO / AFP

Agadez, Niger- Back in the days when Muammar Gaddafi was leader, Libya was billed as a top destination for those looking for jobs and money. But it has turned into the seventh circle of hell for migrants whose experiences range from exploitation verging on slavery to kidnapping and torture.

Migrants told Agence France Presse in Agadez, the main city in central Niger, about their suffering in Libya, which is in the grip of anarchy, controlled by a network of armed groups and militias, a place where African migrants are exposed to every form of abuse.

Now Libya is bad, bad, bad, said Ibrahim Ali, a native of Guinea-Bissau who has just returned to Agadez.

Exhausted by his trip back through the desert, this young man appears traumatized by the two years he spent working there.

Guns, everywhere guns. It no good any more, agrees Eric Manu, a 36-year-old bricklayer from Ghana who stayed there for several years.

Too much problems.

He said he left because of the unrest but also because wages had fallen by two-thirds and that hed had problems being paid.

You can work and they dont pay you.

Kante Sekou, a 27-year-old graduate, left Guinea in 2013 in the hope of getting to Europe.

But he gave up after reaching Libya where he spent a difficult time dodging both the police, who were arresting people, and the militias who were fighting each other.

He was finally taken on as a laborer on a construction site with a group of other migrants.

We were paid 15 dinars ($11/10 euros) per day and we had to hand over five of that for food. But we never saw any money. We would sometimes go three or four weeks without being paid, he said.

The food ran out and we didnt know what to do, recalls Sekou, who holds a degree in communications studies. In one village, we had to go into an abattoir (to find food). We took the leftovers camels feet and things like that which nobody wanted.

It didnt taste good but we had to do it.

One day, the workers were told the money had arrived, but Sekou wasnt paid what he was owed so he upped and left, moving to Misrata in the west where he worked as a decorator.

He also had a run-in with bandits, who routinely kidnap migrants and lock them up in makeshift prisons in order to extort a random.

Once, I had to jump out of a moving car to escape from armed men who wanted to take me away, he recalls. Others werent so lucky, such as 26-year-old Ibrahim Kande from Senegal who says anyone earning money which is usually sent home to support family is targeted by bandits.

If you earn money, the boys (armed men) catch you, beat you, and put you in prison not a normal prison, a private one, he says.

They lock you up and you have to pay between 200,000 and 500,000 CFA to get out the equivalent of 300-750 euros ($350-$850).

They call your parents and you have to tell them Send me the money or theyll kill me.

The money is picked up in the home country by an intermediary who gives the green light to free the captive, according to a modus operandi confirmed by multiple migrants.

Then, through various murky channels, the money is transferred to Libya.

They hit me many times, they kicked me, stabbed me, says Kande, showing scars on his forehead and on his leg. They robbed me three times. You cant sleep, youre always afraid. I suffered a lot.

Balde Aboubakar Sikiki from Kindia, a city in Guinea, was also kidnapped and held in a private prison.

They look like normal houses from the outside, but there are rooms where they lock you up. There are many people in there, says this 35-year-old.

He also says he was tortured before paying the ransom to get out.

They take you out of the cell and they beat you on the soles of your feet with batons or cables, he says. Such stories are rife among those who have returned from Libya.

Even so, there many people in Agadez who remain undeterred by such horror stories.

It will make the journey (to Europe) more expensive because its dangerous, but in the end, its always the migrants who pay, shrugs one.

Asharq Al-Awsat is the worlds premier pan-Arab daily newspaper, printed simultaneously each day on four continents in 14 cities. Launched in London in 1978, Asharq Al-Awsat has established itself as the decisive publication on pan-Arab and international affairs, offering its readers in-depth analysis and exclusive editorials, as well as the most comprehensive coverage of the entire Arab world.

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Libya: Once an Opportunity, Now Hell for Migrants - Asharq Al-awsat English