Y'all Asked - slave trade in Libya

There have been many questions to FOX 26 News regarding Libyan slave trade. There are alarming photos being distributed that suggest that people are being sold.

CNN visited Tripoli and uncovered an actual slave auction. Journalists witnessed it firsthand. Men were being sold for just hundreds of dollars. That footage was given to Libyan authorities. The trade is real, but some of images online are not.

One picture was taken on the Ivory Coast back in 2011. Snopes tracked down its origin and determined it was of military prisoners who were arrested for opposing the president.

Reuters notes that another photo from 2011 was of a rebel caught fighting against Muammar Gaddafi, in no way related to the slave trade.

One Getty Images photo was in Libya, but show migrants who were rescued when their ship sank.

Another photo was of a rebel captured during the civil war. It won a photojournalism contest in 2012. The photographer was covering the Syrian civil war and was killed not long after the photo was taken.