{"id":628829,"date":"2026-06-09T07:54:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T07:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/628829\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T07:54:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T07:54:09","slug":"300-migrants-bound-for-uk-kidnapped-and-threatened-with-kidney-removal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/628829\/","title":{"rendered":"300 migrants bound for UK kidnapped and threatened with kidney removal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">More than 300 migrants heading to the UK last summer were kidnapped, tortured and threatened with forced organ removal, the BBC has learned.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The young men, all from Iraqi Kurdistan, were captured in Libya by a militia who demanded a ransom of $5,000 (\u00a33,700) from each of their families, and threatened to harvest the captives&#8217; kidneys if payment was not made promptly.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">We have spoken to some hostages who have since been released, and seen photo evidence suggesting that forced operations did take place.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The former captives showed us evidence of torture, and said they had been kept in cramped conditions, with nearly 180 people sharing a cell.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">At least one hostage is known to have died, and it is unclear how many remain captive.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The militia was supposed to be guiding the migrants through Libya to the Mediterranean coast. However, a dispute over payment had broken out with the Iraqi Kurd people-smuggler, Noah Aaron, who had organised the migrants&#8217; journey.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Aaron is now serving a 10-year prison sentence in France for separate money laundering and smuggling offences.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than 300 migrants heading to the UK last summer were kidnapped, tortured and threatened with forced organ&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":628830,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-628829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=628829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628829\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/628830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=628829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=628829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=628829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}