Migrants flock to Libya despite lack of law and order

The raid by the uniformed Libyan security forces came out of the blue. On Wednesday morning, officers stormed into a coffee shop in the coastal town of Zuwara, near the Tunisian border, where a group of migrants was waiting for potential employers. The men were rounded up, and some were subsequently arrested and taken away, apparently at random.

Michael Shira, a 19-year-old from Nigeria who was also in the cafe that morning, was lucky to avoid arrest. "But we live in constant fear," he told DW. "The Libyan authorities are currently arresting migrants wherever they see them."

Shira has been hiding out in Libya for a few months, trying to get work and waiting for an opportunity to get on a boat to reach Europe. "First, I was in Tunisia but I was chased by the Tunisian police," he recalls. He then tried to escape to Libya where Tunisian border forces almost arrested him. "They intended to hand us migrants over to the Libyan authorities and everyone knows what happens then," the teenager said. More often than not, migrants like him end up in one of Libya's detention centers.

UN calls for probe into Libyan mass graves

"We continue to see widespread human rights violations against migrants, refugees and asylum seekers in Libya," Liz Throssell, United Nations Human Rights Office spokesperson, told DW.

According to the UN, those violations include trafficking, torture, forced labour, extortion, starvation in intolerable detention conditions, mass expulsions and the sale of human beings. "These are done at scale and with impunity while both state and non-state actors often work in collusion," Throssell added.

On Tuesday, Volker Türk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, also urged the Libyan authorities to carry out investigations into a recently discovered mass grave along the Libyan-Tunisian border, as well as into one found in Libya's al-Jahriya valley in March this year, which was found to contain at least 65 bodies.

In the past few years, Libya and Tunisia have turned into North Africa's most popular departure points for migrants from sub-Saharan countries. Both countries are also partners for the European Union as it seeks to curb the flow of migrants across the Mediterranean Sea.

In July, the Italian Nova News Agency reported that Libya now ranked first as departure country for migrants en route to Italy, though number of arrivals appears to be declining. From the beginning of 2024 until July 5, around 14,755 migrants arrived on Italy's islands from Libya, a decrease of 47% compared to 2023. Departures from Tunisia dropped by around 70% to 10,247 migrants.

Decreasing departures, increasing rights violations in Libya

The decrease in departures, however, does not indicate that fewer people are traveling to Libya. On the contrary, according to humanitarian groups on the ground, who have reported an increase. But accurate numbers are hard to find as Libya has been in political turmoil for a decade.

Libya's west is under the administration of the UN-recognized government under Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah in Tripoli and the east is under the rule of General Khalifa Hiftar. The political stalemate is further exacerbated by unrest and  militias ruling in other parts of the country.

"In some ways, the same things that make it difficult to travel through Libya are also the reasons why people seek to travel through Libya," said Tim Eaton, senior research fellow at the London-based think tank Chatham House, noting that the number of migrants was increasing "even though the many dangers of travelling through Libya are well known."

"The lack of law and order in Libya and the ability of smuggling networks to be able to continue to operate, often in complicity with officials, means that those schemes are kind of ongoing," he told DW.

Eaton doesn't think that a turnaround in Libya's handling of transiting migrants is likely in the near future, even though Libya is set to host the International Forum on Migration on July 17.

For Lauren Seibert, who focuses on refugees and migrant rights at Human Rights Watch, only international pressure could play a key role. "Tunisia should immediately halt all expulsions to border areas where peoples' lives are at risk," she told DW, adding that "also the EU should suspend funding to authorities carrying out these deadly expulsions."

David Yambio, a human rights defender at the non-governmental organization Refugees in Libya is convinced that the situation for migrants in Libya will only improve once the international stance changes. "Namely, once the EU stops conjugating the political sphere of militias and governmental bodies," he said.

Libya an attractive but dangerous destination

A recent report by the UN-affiliated Mixed Migration Center and the German political foundation Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung also found that Libya has also become an increasingly popular destination country for migrants in its own right.

"Readily accessible job opportunities play a significant role," the authors stated, though the absence of legal rights also increased the migrants' vulnerability.

For Nika William, a 24-year-old from Ghana who came to Libya to earn money for the journey to Europe, the country will be forever connected to her traumatizing experiences. "I fell into the hands of a Libyan gang, I was raped and became pregnant before I was imprisoned in Libya's Al-Assa prison," she told DW in Zuwara.

"They lined us up and flogged us one by one every morning, I lost the baby and still can't believe that I survived," William said.

Though she was eventually released, the fear has not yet subsided. "All I want is a safe future, but I don't know if I will ever achieve that or if today will be my last day," she said.

Michael Shira from Nigeria shares this ambition. "All I want is to reach Europe, where I believe I can find more stable life opportunities," he said. "But the way ahead is long and full of dangers, and I don't know if I will ever make it."