EU/Libya: The odyssey of migrants in transit through Libya
01 January 2008
Fortress Europe, the organisation that brings together material concerning deaths of migrants in their attempts to enter Europe, has produced a damning report,
Escape from Tripoli, on the plight of migrants from sub-Saharan Africa who attempt to reach Europe after crossing Libya. It illustrates the effects that the externalisation of restrictive EU policies in this field are having on the ground in transit countries. Based on statements by migrants who have passed through Libya, the report traces the different stages in the migrants' journeys, that often last several years.
It documents the hardships the migrants suffer with abuses at every stage of the journey, perpetrated by smuggling networks, people in the street, police officers and military personnel, and guards in detention centres. Noting that "Libya is merely a transit country", and that the "number of victims [in the channel of Sicily] is increasing in spite of a decrease of arrivals" with 502 deaths in the first nine months of 2007 compared 302 for the whole of 2006 -, partly as a result of the use of longer and more dangerous routes "in order to avoid patrols or refoulement at sea", the report condemns increasing European (and especially Italian) co-operation with Libya in spite of evidence from NGOs and an EU technical mission to Libya in 2004 reporting the "arbitrary arrest of foreigners, abuses, collective deportations and the failure to recognise the right of asylum".
The existence of 20 sites (three of them funded by Italy) where migrants are held is detailed, as are mass expulsions to the desert (often resulting in deaths), a ten-fold increase in repatriation figures (198,000 between 2003 and 2006), deportations to countries of origin of refugees fleeing violence or ten-year national service (as in the cases of Sudan and Eritrea respectively), and an enormous number of migrants detained (60,000 in May 2007, according to a Frontex report), higher than the entire Italian prison population, in a country that has approximately one tenth of its population. A map of the detention centres is provided, and there are witness statements from a dozen people regarding abuses and the crowded and unhygienic conditions that often result in infections that spread quickly among detainees.
However, what is most disturbing is the migrants' lack of protection from abuse during their journey and the hardships they have to withstand. These begin during the journey across the desert and into Libya, where smuggling networks charge them hundreds of dollars to embark upon journeys during which many die. They withstand extreme conditions and are often abandoned in the desert. The people who pick them up for the second leg of the journey ask them for more money to continue the trip, or leave them there. A sense of impotence is evident in many of the statements, such as that of Sennai, who was 17-years old at the time:
I had set off from Eritrea in 2004 with a dear friend of mine, Mussie...Mussie travelled with his 20 year-old sister. The driver had set his eyes on her straight away. On the first night he started bothering her, he took her away from the group and tried to rape her, and she started screaming. Mussie heard her and ran over to protect her. The driver was armed and stabbed him to death in the fight that followed. Afterwards, he took the girl with him again. We could have defended him, but we were in the middle of the desert and, without the driver, we would have never found the way.
Once in Tripoli, the situation hardly improves, as detailed by Abraham:
I set off from Tripoli in July 2007. It is a city where it is impossible to live. On every street corner you meet people who ask you for money. They know you must leave for Italy and think that you have lots of money. If you don't pay up they attack you. Children, boys also ask you for money. And if you don't pay, you find yourself having to deal with the larger group of friends,