Doctors Without Borders (MSF) medics treat the injured in Misrata back in April 2011. On Thursday, MSF announced they are pulling out of detention centers in Misrata over complaints that former rebels now ruling Libya are torturing detainees accused of being pro-Gadhafi. (Tristan Pfund/AFP/Getty Images)

Aid group Doctors Without Borders (MSF) suspended operations on Thursday at Libyan detention centers in Misrata—a city hard-hit during the country’s civil war—over reports from MSF staff members who said they treated detainees’ injuries between torture sessions. 

After they were treated, some detainees were sent back to interrogation centers to suffer more abuse, the aid group said. 

According to a report published on Thursday by Amnesty International, Libya’s new government has not stopped the practice of torturing detainees that was honed under decades of rule under the late ruler Moammar Gadhafi. 

Amnesty said the abuse is carried out by both military and security entities as well as by a multitude of armed militias. 

Those targeted are suspected pro-Gadhafi fighters from sub-Saharan African countries, and loyalists to Gadhafi. The organization says it was able to verify that several prisoners had died after mistreatment. 

In all, MSF said it treated 115 people suffering from torture wounds. 

“Some officials have sought to exploit and obstruct MSF’s medical work,” MSF general director Christopher Stokes said in a statement. “Patients were brought to us in the middle of interrogation for medical care, in order to make them fit for further interrogation.”

Stokes called the practice “unacceptable” because MSF is meant to “to provide medical care to war casualties and sick detainees, not to repeatedly treat the same patients between torture sessions.”

Moreover, MSF also said that a number of patients they recommended be transferred to hospital for urgent medical care were denied treatment. 

After MSF raised the issue with relevant authorities in Misrata and with the interim government’s army. ““No concrete action has been taken,” Stokes said.

Reports of torture and mistreatment have put pressure on the ruling National Transitional Council’s (NTC) leadership, which has vowed to change the country around after four decades of rule under Gadhafi’s brutal dictatorship. 

The NTC has called on militias throughout the country not to carry out reprisal attacks against Gadhafi loyalists, but this could prove difficult since many of the factions operate independently.

“Libyans are faced with the enormous challenge of addressing past abuses. These include violations committed during the former regime” and other abuses, said United Nations human rights chief Navi Pillay on Wednesday, according to a transcript.