US Edition
Libya: Migrants, Refugees in Libya Subjected to 'Systematic' Abuse
The U.N. report details abuses against 5,000 migrants in Libya, urging the EU to halt returns until human rights safeguards are established.
- On Feb 17, the United Nations Human Rights Office and the U.N. Support Mission published a report calling for a moratorium on returns to Libya, citing widespread abuses including torture and rape. The report covers January 2024 to December 2025 and is based on nearly 100 interviews with migrants from 16 countries.
- Since 2011, Libya has served as a major transit route 300 kilometers from Europe, while in recent years the European Union and EU member states funded Libyan coastguard programs causing interceptions and returns to detention centres.
- Witness testimony describes abuses including forced labour, girls as young as 14 raped daily, and detention for ransom at trafficking houses in Tobruk, Libya, based on interviews with almost 100 migrants from 16 countries.
- Around 5,000 people are held in official centres and face severe abuses, while the EU Commission spokesperson, Libya mission in Geneva, and Tripoli-based Government of National Unity offered limited immediate comment, and Libyan authorities denied systematic abuse.
- The report urged urgent legal and policy reforms to dismantle the exploitative model, emphasising life-saving search and rescue operations while calling on the international community to halt returns to Libya.
17 Articles
17 Articles
UN: Migrants in Libya, including girls, face rape and torture
Migrants in Libya, including young girls, are at risk of being killed, tortured, raped or put into domestic slavery, according to a UN report that called for a moratorium on the return of migrant boats to the country until human rights are ensured. Libya has become a transit route for migrants fleeing conflict and poverty to Europe across the Mediterranean since the fall in 2011 of dictator Muammar Gaddafi to a NATO-backed uprising. Factional co…
UN for upholding migrants' rights
The UN on Tuesday called on the Libyan authorities — both the UN-backed government in Tripoli and a rival administration in the east — to undertake urgent reforms to protect the rights and dignity of migrants and refugees. "In Libya, systematic and widespread human rights violations and abuses against migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees persist with impunity", said a report by the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) and the Office of the UN …
A UN report sharply criticizes Europe's handling of deportations to Libya – could there now be consequences for the EU? The debate is intensifying.
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