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Syria to Libya to the EU: How People-smugglers Operate

Survivors of the June shipwreck off the coast of Greece stand outside a warehouse at the port in Kalamata town. Angelos Tzortzinis / AFP/File
Survivors of the June shipwreck off the coast of Greece stand outside a warehouse at the port in Kalamata town. Angelos Tzortzinis / AFP/File
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Syria to Libya to the EU: How People-smugglers Operate

Survivors of the June shipwreck off the coast of Greece stand outside a warehouse at the port in Kalamata town. Angelos Tzortzinis / AFP/File
Survivors of the June shipwreck off the coast of Greece stand outside a warehouse at the port in Kalamata town. Angelos Tzortzinis / AFP/File

For desperate Syrians, a WhatsApp message saying "I want to go to Europe" can be all they need to start a treacherous journey to Libya and then across the Mediterranean.

Twelve years after conflict broke out when President Bashar al-Assad repressed peaceful pro-democracy protests, Syrians are still trying to escape a war that has killed more than 500,000 people, displaced millions and pulled in foreign powers and global extremists.

At least 141 Syrians were among up to 750 migrants thought to have been on a trawler that set off from Libya and sank off Greece in June, relatives and activists told AFP. Most of the passengers are feared drowned.

AFP interviewed Syrian smugglers and migrants about the journey to migrant hub Libya, notorious for rights abuses, and then across the central Mediterranean -- the world's deadliest migrant route.

Almost everyone requested anonymity, fearing reprisals.
'A batch every month'
"We finalize everything by phone," said a smuggler in Syria's southern Daraa province.

"We ask for a copy of their passport and tell them where to deposit the money. We don't have to see anyone in person," he told AFP over WhatsApp.

Daraa, the cradle of Syria's uprising, returned to regime control in 2018.

It has since been plagued by killings, clashes and dire living conditions, all of which are fueling an exodus, activists say.

"The first year we started, we only sent one group. Today, we send a batch every month" to Libya, the smuggler said.

"People are selling their homes and leaving."

Libya descended into chaos after a NATO-backed uprising toppled and killed late Moamer Kadhafi in 2011, the same year Syria's war began.

The North African country is split between a UN-recognized government in the west and another in the east backed by military strongman Khalifa Haftar, who has ties to Damascus.

Syrians deposit the money -- more than $6,000 per person -- with a third party, often an exchange office which takes a commission.

The smuggler declined to disclose his cut, but said he was paid once the migrants reached Italy. His partner in eastern Libya organizes the actual boat trip.

'Humiliated, beaten'

One travel agent in Daraa told an AFP correspondent posing as a migrant that a package deal cost $6,500.

This included a plane ticket, eastern Libya entry document, airport pickup, transport, accommodation, the boat journey to Italy and a life jacket, a WhatsApp message said.

Migrants stay "in a hotel or a furnished apartment", it added, but Syrians said such promises were seldom kept.

They told AFP of overcrowded and disease-ridden warehouses, where armed guards subjected migrants to violence and extortion.

Omar, 23, from Daraa province, borrowed $8,000 to be smuggled to Libya and then Italy this year, saying he was desperate to leave "a country with no future".

Now in Germany, he said he spent two weeks locked in a hangar near the coast in eastern Libya with around 200 other people.

"We were abused, yelled at, humiliated and beaten," added Omar, who said guards gave them only meager servings of rice, bread and cheese to eat.

On departure day, "around 20 armed men forced us to run" the distance from the hangar to the sea, "hitting us with the back of their rifles", he said.

"When we finally reached the shores, I was exhausted. I couldn't believe I'd made it."

Among mercenaries
In part of northern Syria controlled by Ankara-backed rebel groups, a recruiter of fighters said he also smuggled migrants to Libya by listing them among pro-Türkiye mercenaries.

Türkiye supports the Tripoli administration in Libya's west.

Ankara has largely shut down a once well-trodden route to Europe via Türkiye.

"Every six months, we use the fighters' rotation to send people with them," the recruiter told AFP.

Syrians from the impoverished, opposition-held northern Idlib and Aleppo provinces, "particularly those living in displacement camps, contact us", the recruiter said.

Listed as "fighters", the Syrian migrants are entitled to a Turkish-paid "salary" of around $2,500, the recruiter said.

The armed group pockets $1,300, the recruiter takes the rest and the migrants get a free flight to Libya, he said.

Syrians first go to border camps for pro-Ankara fighters before crossing into Türkiye and flying to the Libyan capital Tripoli.

They spend two weeks in Syrian militia camps in western Libya before being introduced to smugglers, who ask around $2,000 for the boat trip to Italy, he added.

'To hide our tracks'

For those in regime-held Syria, getting to Libya can involve criss-crossing the Middle East on a variety of airlines and sometimes overland -- "to hide our tracks", the smuggler in Daraa said.

AFP saw a group ticket for around 20 Syrian migrants who traveled to neighboring Lebanon and then flew from Beirut to a Gulf state, then to Egypt, before finally landing in Benghazi in eastern Libya.

Direct flights are also available from Damascus to Benghazi with private Syrian carrier Cham Wings.

The European Union blacklisted Cham Wings in 2021 for its alleged role in irregular migration to Europe via Belarus, lifting the measures in July last year.

Several Syrians told AFP that on their flights to Benghazi, direct or not, were many migrants bound for Europe.

Spokesperson Osama Satea said Cham Wings carried only travelers with valid Libyan entry documents, noting the presence of a considerable Syrian diaspora there.

He told AFP the airline is not responsible for determining whether passengers are traveling for work or for other reasons, but "it certainly doesn't fly to Libya to contribute to smuggling or migration attempts".

'There was terror'
Syrians arriving in Benghazi need a security authorization from the eastern authorities to enter.

But the Daraa smuggler told AFP this was not a problem: "In Libya, like in Syria, paying off security officials can solve everything."

"We have a guy in the security apparatus who gets the authorizations just with a click," he said.

Migrants told AFP a smuggler's associate -- sometimes a security officer -- escorted them out of Benghazi's Benina airport.

One security authorization seen by AFP bore the logo of Haftar's forces and listed the names and passport numbers of more than 80 Syrians bound for Europe.

Once in Libya, the Syrians may wait weeks or months for the journey's most perilous part.

More than 1,800 migrants of various nationalities have died crossing the central Mediterranean towards Europe this year, according to International Organization for Migration figures.

Around 90,000 others have arrived in Italy, according to the UN refugee agency, most having embarked from Libya or Tunisia.

A 23-year-old from northern Syria's Kurdish-held Kobane was among around 100 survivors of the June shipwreck off Greece.

He paid more than $6,000 for a trip that almost cost him his life.

"There was terror," he said.

Six people died in desperate fights over food and water, and "on the fifth day, we started drinking seawater".

"I wanted to leave the war behind, live my life and help my family," he said from Europe, warning others against making the trip.

"I was promised decent lodgings and a safe trawler, but I got nothing."

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Features

Rebuilding the Army: One of the Syrian Govt’s Greatest Challenges

Soldiers and police officers from the former Syrian regime handing in weapons last year to new security forces in Latakia, Syria. (Ivor Prickett for The New York Times)
Soldiers and police officers from the former Syrian regime handing in weapons last year to new security forces in Latakia, Syria. (Ivor Prickett for The New York Times)
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Rebuilding the Army: One of the Syrian Govt’s Greatest Challenges

Soldiers and police officers from the former Syrian regime handing in weapons last year to new security forces in Latakia, Syria. (Ivor Prickett for The New York Times)
Soldiers and police officers from the former Syrian regime handing in weapons last year to new security forces in Latakia, Syria. (Ivor Prickett for The New York Times)

When opposition factions in Syria came to power a year ago, one of their first acts was to dismiss all of the country’s military forces, which had been used as tools of repression and brutality for five decades under the rule of Bashar al-Assad and his family.

Now, one of the biggest challenges facing the nascent government is rebuilding those forces, an effort that will be critical in uniting this still-fractured country.

But to do so, Syria’s new leaders are following a playbook that is similar to the one they used to set up their government, in which President Ahmed al-Sharaa has relied on a tightknit circle of loyalists.

The military’s new command structure favors former fighters from Sharaa’s former Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group.

The Syrian Defense Ministry is instituting some of the same training methods, including religious instruction, that Sharaa’s former opposition group used to become the most powerful of all the factions that fought the Assad regime during Syria’s civil war.

The New York Times interviewed nearly two dozen soldiers, commanders and new recruits in Syria who discussed the military training and shared their concerns. Nearly all spoke on the condition of anonymity because the Defense Ministry bars soldiers from speaking to the media.

Several soldiers and commanders, as well as analysts, said that some of the government’s rules had nothing to do with military preparedness.

The new leadership was fastidious about certain points, like banning smoking for on-duty soldiers. But on other aspects, soldiers said, the training felt disconnected from the needs of a modern military force.

Last spring, when a 30-year-old former opposition fighter arrived for military training in Syria’s northern province of Aleppo, instructors informed roughly 1,400 new recruits that smoking was not permitted. The former fighter said one of the instructors searched him and confiscated several cigarette packs hidden in his jacket.

The ban pushed dozens of recruits to quit immediately, and many more were kicked out for ignoring it, according to the former fighter, a slender man who chain-smoked as he spoke in Marea, a town in Aleppo Province. After three weeks, only 600 recruits had made it through the training, he said.

He stuck with it.

He said he was taken aback by other aspects of the training. The first week was devoted entirely to Islamic instruction, he said.

Soldiers and commanders said the religious training reflected the ideology that the HTS espoused when it was in power in Idlib, a province in northwestern Syria.

A Syrian defense official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said the government had not decided whether minorities would be allowed to enlist.

Syria’s leaders are relying on a small circle of trusted comrades from HTS to lead and shape the new military, several soldiers, commanders and recruits said.

The Syrian Defense Ministry did not respond to a detailed list of questions or repeated requests for comment.

After abolishing conscription, much hated under the Assad regime, the new military recruited volunteers and set qualifications like a ninth-grade education, physical fitness and the ability to read.

But soldiers who had fought with the opposition in the civil war were grandfathered into the ranks, even if they did not fulfill all the criteria, according to several soldiers and commanders.

“They are bringing in a commander of HTS who doesn’t even have a ninth-grade education and are putting him in charge of a battalion,” said Issam al-Reis, a senior military adviser with Etana, a Syrian research group, who has spoken to many former opposition fighters currently serving in the military. “And his only qualification is that he was loyal to Ahmed al-Sharaa.”

Former HTS fighters, like fighters from many other factions, have years of guerrilla-fighting experience from the war to oust the Assad dictatorship. But most have not served as officers in a formal military with different branches such as the navy, air force and infantry and with rigid command structures, knowledge that is considered beneficial when rebuilding an army.

“The strength of an army is in its discipline,” Reis added.

Most soldiers and commanders now start with three weeks of basic training — except those who previously fought alongside Sharaa’s group.

The government has signed an initial agreement with Türkiye to train and develop the military, said Qutaiba Idlbi, director of American affairs at the Syrian Foreign Ministry. But the agreement does not include deliveries of weapons or military equipment, he said, because of American sanctions remaining on Syria.

Col. Ali Abdul Baqi, staff commander of the 70th Battalion in Damascus, is among the few high-level commanders who was not a member of the HTS. Speaking from his office in Damascus, Abdul Baqi said that had he been in Sharaa’s place, he would have built the new military in the same way.

“They aren’t going to take a risk on people they don’t know,” said the colonel, who commanded another opposition group during the civil war.

Some senior commanders said the religious instruction was an attempt to build cohesion through shared faith, not a way of forcing a specific ideology on new recruits.

“In our army, there should be a division focused on political awareness and preventing crimes against humanity and war crimes,” said Omar al-Khateeb, a law graduate, former opposition fighter and current military commander in Aleppo province. “This is more important than training us in religious doctrine we already know.”

*Raja Abdulrahim for The New York Times

Features

Winter Storm Rips through Gaza, Exposing Failure to Deliver Enough Aid to Territory

Palestinians cross a flooded street following heavy rain in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Thursday, Dec. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinians cross a flooded street following heavy rain in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Thursday, Dec. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
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Winter Storm Rips through Gaza, Exposing Failure to Deliver Enough Aid to Territory

Palestinians cross a flooded street following heavy rain in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Thursday, Dec. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinians cross a flooded street following heavy rain in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Thursday, Dec. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Rains drenched Gaza’s tent camps and dropping temperatures chilled Palestinians huddling inside them Thursday as storm Byron descended on the war-battered territory, showing how two months of a ceasefire have failed to sufficiently address the spiraling humanitarian crisis there.

Children’s sandaled feet disappeared under opaque brown water that flooded the camps. Trucks moved slowly to avoid sending waves of mud toward the tents. Piles of garbage and sewage turned to waterfalls.

“We have been drowned. I don’t have clothes to wear and we have no mattresses left,” said Um Salman Abu Qenas, a mother displaced from east of Khan Younis to a tent camp in Deir al-Balah. She said her family could not sleep the night before because of the water in the tent, The AP news reported.

Aid groups say not enough shelter aid is getting into Gaza during the truce. Figures recently released by Israel's military suggest it has not met the ceasefire stipulation of allowing 600 trucks of aid into Gaza a day, though Israel disputes that finding.

“Cold, overcrowded, and unsanitary environments heighten the risk of illness and infection,” said the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, in a terse statement posted on X. “This suffering could be prevented by unhindered humanitarian aid, including medical support and proper shelter."

Rains falling across the region wreak havoc in Gaza Sabreen Qudeeh, also in the Deir al-Balah camp, said her family woke up to rain leaking from their tent's ceiling and water from the street soaking their mattresses. “My little daughters were screaming and got shocked when they saw water on the floor,” she said.

Ahmad Abu Taha, a Palestinian man in the camp, said there was not a tent that escaped the flooding. “Conditions are very bad, we have old people, displaced, and sick people inside this camp,” he said.

In Israel, heavy rains fell and flood warnings were in effect in several parts of the country — but no major weather-related emergencies were reported as of midday.

The contrasting scenes with Gaza made clear how profoundly the Israel-Hamas war had damaged the territory, destroying the majority of homes. Gaza’s population of around 2 million is almost entirely displaced and most people live in vast tent camps stretching for miles along the beach, exposed to the elements, without adequate flooding infrastructure and with cesspits dug near tents as toilets.

The Palestinian Civil Defense, part of the Hamas-run government, said that since the storm began they have received more than 2,500 distress calls from citizens whose tents and shelters were damaged in all parts of the Gaza Strip.

Not enough aid getting in Aid groups say that Israel is not allowing enough aid into Gaza to begin rebuilding the territory after years of war.

Under the agreement, Israel agreed to comply with aid stipulations from an earlier January 2025 truce, which specified that it allow 600 trucks of aid each day into Gaza and an agreed-upon number of temporary homes and tents. It maintains it is doing so, though AP has found that some of its own figures call that into question.

COGAT said Dec. 9, without providing evidence, that it had “lately" let 260,000 tents and tarpaulins into Gaza and over 1,500 trucks of blankets and warm clothing. The Shelter Cluster, an international coalition of aid providers led by the Norwegian Refugee Council, sets the number lower.

It says UN and international NGOs have gotten 15,590 tents into Gaza since the truce began, and other countries have sent about 48,000. Many of the tents are not properly insulated, the Cluster says.

Amjad al-Shawa, Gaza chief of the Palestinian NGO Network, told Al Jazeera Thursday that only a fraction of the 300,000 tents needed had entered Gaza. He said that Palestinians were in dire need of warmer winter clothes and accused Israel of blocking the entry of water pumps helpful to clear flooded shelters.

"All international sides should take the responsibility regarding conditions in Gaza,” he said. “There is real danger for people in Gaza at all levels.”

Senior Hamas official Khaled Mashaal said that many people’s tents have become worn out after the two-year war, and people cannot find new places to shelter. He said Gaza also needs the rehabilitation of hospitals, the entry of heavy machinery to remove rubble, and the opening of the Rafah crossing — which remains closed after Israel said last week it would open in a few days.

COGAT did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the claims that Israel was not allowing water pumps or heavy machinery into Gaza.

Ceasefire at a critical point Mashaal, the Hamas official, called for moving to the second, more complicated phase of the US-brokered ceasefire.

“The reconstruction should start in the second phase as today there is suffering in terms of shelter and stability,” Mashaal said in comments released by Hamas on social media.

Regional leaders have said time is critical for the ceasefire agreement as mediators seek to move to phase 2. But obstacles to moving forward remain.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Wednesday that the militants needed to return the body of a final hostage first.

Hamas has said Israel must open key border crossings and cease deadly strikes on the territory.

Features

Ukraine Hasn’t Held Elections since Russia’s Full-scale Invasion. Here’s Why

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky speaks to press before his meeting with President of Cyprus in Kyiv on December 4, 2025, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (Photo by Genya SAVILOV / AFP)
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky speaks to press before his meeting with President of Cyprus in Kyiv on December 4, 2025, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (Photo by Genya SAVILOV / AFP)
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Ukraine Hasn’t Held Elections since Russia’s Full-scale Invasion. Here’s Why

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky speaks to press before his meeting with President of Cyprus in Kyiv on December 4, 2025, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (Photo by Genya SAVILOV / AFP)
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky speaks to press before his meeting with President of Cyprus in Kyiv on December 4, 2025, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (Photo by Genya SAVILOV / AFP)

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has rejected suggestions that he is using the war as an excuse to cling to power, saying he is ready to hold elections if the US and other allies will help ensure the security of the poll and if the country's electoral law can be altered.

Zelenskyy’s five-year term was scheduled to end in May 2024, but elections were legally put off due to Russia’s full-scale invasion. That has become a source of tension with US President Donald Trump, who has criticized the delay as he pushes Zelenskyy to accept his proposals for ending the war.

Zelenskyy responded to that criticism on Tuesday, saying he was ready for elections.

“Moreover, I am now asking — and I am stating this openly — for the United States, possibly together with our European colleagues, to help me ensure security for holding elections,” he told reporters on WhatsApp. “And then, within the next 60–90 days, Ukraine will be ready to hold them.”

Until now, Zelenskyy has declined to hold an election until a ceasefire is declared, in line with Ukrainian law that prevents a poll from being held when martial law is in effect. Ukrainians largely support that decision.

Here is a look at why Ukraine has not been able to hold elections so far:

A wartime election would be illegal

Ukraine has been under martial law since February 2022, when Russia launched its full-scale invasion. The country’s constitution provides for martial law in wartime, and a separate law bars the holding of elections while it remains in force.

Beyond being illegal, any nationwide vote would pose serious security risks as Russia bombs Ukrainian cities with missiles and drones. With roughly one-fifth of the country under Russian occupation and millions of Ukrainians displaced abroad, organizing a nationwide ballot is also widely seen as logistically impossible.

It would also be difficult to find a way for Ukrainian soldiers on the front line to cast their votes, The Associated Press said.

Although Zelenskyy’s term formally expired in May 2024, Ukraine's constitution allows him to legitimately remain in office until a newly elected president is sworn in.

What Trump said

In an interview with Politico published on Tuesday, Trump said it was time for Ukraine to hold elections.

“They’re using war not to hold an election, but, uh, I would think the Ukrainian people ... should have that choice. And maybe Zelenskyy would win. I don’t know who would win.

“But they haven’t had an election in a long time. You know, they talk about a democracy, but it gets to a point where it’s not a democracy anymore.”

Trump's comments on elections echo Moscow's stance. The Kremlin has used Zelenskyy’s remaining in power after his expired term as a tool to cast him as an illegitimate leader.

What Zelenskyy said Zelenskyy reiterated previous statements that the decision about when to hold elections was one for the Ukrainian people, not its international allies.

The first question, he said, is whether an election could be held securely while Ukraine is under attack from Russia. But in the event that the US and other allies can guarantee the security of the poll, Zelenskyy said he is asking lawmakers to propose legal changes that would allow elections to be held under martial law.

“I’ve heard it suggested that we’re clinging to power, or that I’m personally holding on to the president’s seat, that I’m clinging to it, and that this is supposedly why the war is not ending. This, frankly, is a completely absurd story.”

Zelenskyy has few political rivals

Holding elections in the middle of a war would also sow division in Ukrainian society at a time when the country should be united against Russia, Zelenskyy has said.

One potential candidate who could challenge Zelenskyy in an election is former army chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the current Ukrainian ambassador to Britain. Zaluzhnyi has denied plans to enter politics, though public opinion surveys show him as a potential Zelenskyy rival.

Petro Poroshenko also is a key political rival of Zelenskyy’s and the leader of the largest opposition party. He is unlikely to run again, analysts said, but his backing of a particular candidate would be consequential.