A damning new UN report implicates Libyan authorities in horrific abuses and calls for an immediate halt to boat interceptions that return people to “living nightmares.”
Migrants in Libya are being subjected to a campaign of systematic violence, including killings, torture, and abduction, often with the direct complicity of the very authorities meant to uphold the law, the United Nations Human Rights Office said in a devastating report released on Tuesday.
The joint report by the UN Human Rights Office and the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) lays bare the grim reality facing those who pass through the conflict-ravaged nation. It details how criminal trafficking networks, frequently operating with ties to official Libyan state security bodies and international criminal groups, are rounding up vulnerable people with impunity.
The findings paint a picture of a brutal and organized system. Migrants describe being held in unofficial detention centers that function as torture chambers, where they are beaten, starved, and ransomed. The report highlights that these abuses are not the work of isolated criminals but are enabled by a web of complicity that extends to parts of the Libyan state apparatus.
In response to the harrowing evidence, the UN is making an urgent and unequivocal call: an immediate end to the policy of intercepting and returning migrant boats at sea. The organization argues that these interceptions, often carried out with European support, are effectively funneling people back into a pre-ordained cycle of horror.
“Every return to Libya exposes migrants to a living nightmare,” a UN human rights official stated. “The international community must stop being complicit in this suffering. We cannot continue to return people to shores where they face certain torture and death.”
The report calls for a complete overhaul of the current approach, urging the Libyan government to dismantle trafficking networks, hold all perpetrators—including those in uniform—accountable, and for the world to provide safe and legal pathways for migration to prevent people from falling into the hands of abusers in the first place.
