Libya child migrant abuse: 'They used to beat us every day'

The UN has warned that large numbers of children are still risking their lives to make the dangerous journey from Libya to Italy.  

Girls such as nine-year-old Kamis, who set off with her mother from their home in Nigeria. 

After a desert crossing in which a man died, followed by a dramatic rescue at sea, they found themselves held at a detention centre in the Libyan town of Sabratha.

They used to beat us every day. There was no water there either. That place was very sad. There's nothing there."

Kamis

Unicef says almost 26,000 children - most of them unaccompanied - crossed the Mediterranean last year.

Many children suffer from violence and sexual abuse at the hands of smugglers and traffickers, it says.

But they rarely report their abuse, for fear of arrest and deportation.

The agency also says there is a lack of food, water and medical care in Libya's detention centres.

The plight of children, many of them unaccompanied by parents, has become a tragically familiar part of the wider story of mass migration over the past two years.

• But while much has been said about the extreme dangers faced at sea, the privations experienced on land, especially in Libya, are less familiar.