Migrants encounter hell in Libya: Who bears responsibility?

Carried by ambitions and hopes for a better tomorrow, a number of immigrants set out to flee their countries, which are witnessing deteriorating security and economic conditions that turned their lives into hell, hoping to reach the shores of Europe for a better life.

But the perilous journey has brought a tragic and painful end to the coasts of Libya, which has been engulfed for years in unending chaos.

On the shores of the city of Sabratha in the far north-east of Libya, 70 kilometers from the capital, Tripoli, the teams of the Libyan Red Crescent Society on October 9 found 15 bodies of illegal immigrants.

Local media reports said most of them were from Africa and that they were shot dead after an argument between smugglers.

Who did it?

A group of photos circulated by activists on social media showed the remains of charred bodies in a burning boat with plumes of smoke rising from it and others lying on the shore. This revealed the extent and ugliness of the crime against those who travel long distances to escape areas witnessing fighting, violence and deteriorating economic conditions in the hope of reaching a safer place to find job opportunities and simpler requirements of life.

The ugliness of the incident shed light on the severity of the security chaos in Libya, the spread of various gangs in it, especially human trafficking mafias, and violations against migrants.

According to media reports, the migrants were killed by smugglers. Reuters quoted a security source in Sabratha as saying that the bodies of illegal immigrants were caught in a dispute between two rival groups of human traffickers in the city.

Many fear that the crime, like others, will go unpunished, which prompted the United Nations Support Mission in Libya to call on the Libyan authorities to ensure a prompt, independent and transparent investigation to bring all perpetrators to justice.

In its statement, the mission stressed that “smuggling and criminal networks are committing massive violations of human rights, which needs to be arrested and prosecuted.”

It considered this attack “a stark reminder of the weak protection faced by migrants and asylum seekers in Libya.”

Recurring crime

This heinous crime was not the first that occurred against migrants in Libya, as the country has witnessed in the past years multiple incidents of killing and violations against migrants at the hands of smuggling gangs.

The most recent of these incidents occurred on Wednesday, October 12, when Libyan security forces found migrants freezing in the cold after smugglers put them inside the refrigerator of a truck in an attempt to hide from the police. They were supposed to be transferred to the western coasts of Libya before they set out to sea on an illegal immigration journey towards Europe.

In 2020, the city of Mizdah, 150 kilometers south of the capital, witnessed the murder of 30 African migrants, which was described at the time as a “massacre”. The family of a human trafficker killed the migrants he was holding in revenge for killing him, according to media reports.

On May 23, 2018, smugglers shot dead about 12 illegal immigrants in the city of Bani Waled, western Libya, when they were trying to escape from their place of detention.

Dozens of other migrants also died in July of the same year from suffocation in a closed transport truck in the city of Zuwara, western Libya, due to the long period of stay inside.

The issue of the human trafficking mafias and the numerous violations against migrants were highlighted in the wake of a report broadcast by CNN on November 14, 2017, and widely circulated on social networks, which showed migrants being auctioned off in Libya.

This report was met with a widespread campaign of condemnation from several international parties, amid calls to investigate the case and punish those responsible.

The coastal city of Sabratha is one of the largest smuggling hotspots for illegal immigrants in Libya and Africa, according to reports by international organizations.

The chaos that followed the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 turned Libya into a preferred route for tens of thousands of migrants from Africa, Arab countries, and South Asia eager to reach Europe via Italy.

Migrants are transported with the help of smuggling gangs through boats crossing the Mediterranean Sea to reach the shores of Italy, where smuggling migrants to Europe represents a tempting field of action for gangs that take advantage of the weakness and absence of the state.

Since the beginning of 2022, 14,157 migrants have been intercepted and returned to Libya, according to a report issued by the International Organization for Migration published last Monday.

The organization indicated that at least 216 people died while trying to cross the Mediterranean, and 724 people were missing, who are likely to have died.

European responsibility and fears of the worst

“The smuggling of migrants has witnessed an upward trend in recent months, after it declined relatively during the past two years,” said Khaled Al-Muntaser, professor of international relations at the University of Tripoli.

“There is fierce competition between smuggled groups, most of which are active in western Libyan cities, to attract migrants, given the huge amount of money they earn through this work, as well as the availability of the appropriate environment in the absence of an actual authority capable of enforcing the law,” he added to Jusoor Post.

Al-Muntaser continued, “There is no doubt that the Libyan authorities bear responsibility for the difficult reality experienced by illegal immigrants in light of the great insecurity in many regions of the country and the absence of an effective security vision amid political divisions.”

For his part, Ahmed Al-Mahdawi, professor of political science at the British Libyan University in Benghazi, said, “The smuggling networks of migrants are located within the control of the outgoing government of Abdel Hamid Dbeibah. Many are skeptical about the ability of the latter to move decisively to confront these networks, given its relations with the leaders of armed factions.”

He added to Jusoor Post that “the Dbeibah government, which is in conflict with another government headed by Fathi Bashagha, which is based in Sirte, east of Tripoli, does not want to anger or provoke these factions, and therefore it is not expected to see any reaction or response to international demands.”

“This matter was expressed by the Ministry of Social Affairs in the government of Bashagha, which denounced the Sabratha crime, considering that the dead were victims of exploitation of local human smuggling networks first and regionally second, in the complete absence of the prestige of the state and its security institutions,” Al-Mahdawi continued.

“But on the other hand, the responsibility of the European Union countries for the tragedy of migrants in Libya cannot be overlooked through their policies based on refusing to receive them and intercepting their trips in the Mediterranean. They are also forcibly pushing them towards Libya despite these countries’ awareness of the magnitude of the security risks that migrants face there,” he added.

“These policies may witness a significant escalation in the coming period in light of the extreme right's accession to power in Italy as part of a wave of continuous rise of right-wing movements that included other European countries led by Sweden, Hungary, Poland and Spain during the past three years,” the political science professor said.

“This rise raises great concerns due to the anti-immigration rhetoric in general and irregular immigration in particular adopted by the far-right parties,” he added.