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Exclusive – Fighting in Libya Leaves Psychological Scars on its Children

Displaced Libyan children look out of window at a school where they are taking shelter in Bani Walid, in May 2016. (AFP)
Displaced Libyan children look out of window at a school where they are taking shelter in Bani Walid, in May 2016. (AFP)
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Exclusive – Fighting in Libya Leaves Psychological Scars on its Children

Displaced Libyan children look out of window at a school where they are taking shelter in Bani Walid, in May 2016. (AFP)
Displaced Libyan children look out of window at a school where they are taking shelter in Bani Walid, in May 2016. (AFP)

A few days ago children from the Qasr bin Ghasir region, just south of the Libyan capital Tripoli, were forced to skip school due to the re-eruption of clashes between militias. The fighting has left its impact on all aspects of life, forcing the UN children’s agency, UNICEF, to double its efforts to assist those affected by the unrest.

The children in Tripoli are seen as victims of the armed clashes that erupt in Tripoli from time to time. The result is the suspension of classes and some schools are even turned into shelters for people who have been displaced by the violence.

One Tripoli local said that children have been “most harmed by the wars in the capital.” He explained that the militias occupy schools during the fighting, turning them into military command centers.

For its part, UNICEF said that it is providing aid to 1,251 children affected by the recent fighting in the capital. It has been helping them overcome the scars of displacement and suspension of schools. Moreover, it said that the Bayti center is also providing psychological and social support for the children affected by conflict. So far, 716 girls and 535 boys have benefited from this assistance.

Head of Libya's National Committee for Human Rights Ahmed Hamza said: “The violence and armed clashes in the country are having a catastrophic effect on children.”

Everybody is aware of the dangerous effect violence has on children living in an environment that is witnessing constant unrest, he told Asharq Al-Awsat.

“The effect of conflict also extends to children who become displaced along with their families inside Libya. This consequently leads to their deprivation of an education, security and a dignified life.”

A Tripoli resident noted that the violence in the city has impacted children’s games, in that they now use metal rods or plastic pieces to use as pretend guns, while imitating militia fighters.

UNICEF has warned in September that half a million children in Tripoli are exposed to direct danger from fighting, while 2.6 million throughout Libya are in need of aid.

UNICEF director for the Middle East and North Africa region Geert Cappelaere warned that an even greater number of children face several rights violations. He noted that more children are being recruited to fight, revealing that at least one child soldier has been killed.

Terrorist groups in the eastern city of Derna had previously used children in their fighting, even deploying them to the frontlines. Video circulated on local media has shown minors brandishing weapons after they have been taken away from their families and forced to join armed groups.

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Defending Migrants Was a Priority for Pope Francis from the Earliest Days of His Papacy 

Pope Francis poses for selfie photos with migrants at a regional migrant center in Bologna, Italy, Oct. 1, 2017. (AP)
Pope Francis poses for selfie photos with migrants at a regional migrant center in Bologna, Italy, Oct. 1, 2017. (AP)
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Defending Migrants Was a Priority for Pope Francis from the Earliest Days of His Papacy 

Pope Francis poses for selfie photos with migrants at a regional migrant center in Bologna, Italy, Oct. 1, 2017. (AP)
Pope Francis poses for selfie photos with migrants at a regional migrant center in Bologna, Italy, Oct. 1, 2017. (AP)

Advocating for migrants was one of Pope Francis' top priorities. His papacy saw a refugee crisis in the Mediterranean, skyrocketing numbers of migrants in the Americas, and declining public empathy that led to increasingly restrictive policies around the world.

Francis repeatedly took up the plight of migrants — from bringing asylum-seekers to the Vatican with him from overcrowded island camps to denouncing border initiatives of US President Donald Trump. On the day before his death, Francis briefly met with Vice President JD Vance, with whom he had tangled long-distance over deportation plans.

Some memorable moments when Francis spoke out to defend migrants:

July 8, 2013, Lampedusa, Italy

For his first pastoral visit outside Rome following his election, Francis traveled to the Italian island of Lampedusa — a speck in the Mediterranean whose proximity to North Africa put it on the front line of many smuggling routes and deadly shipwrecks.

Meeting migrants who had been in Libya, he decried their suffering and denounced the “globalization of indifference” that met those who risked their lives trying to reach Europe.

A decade later, in a September 2023 visit to the multicultural French port of Marseille, Francis again blasted the “fanaticism of indifference” toward migrants as European policymakers doubled down on borders amid the rise of the anti-immigration far-right.

April 16, 2016, Lesbos, Greece

Francis traveled to the Greek island of Lesbos at the height of a refugee crisis in which hundreds of thousands of people arrived after fleeing civil war in Syria and other conflicts in the Middle East and South Asia.

He brought three Muslim families to Italy on the papal plane. Rescuing those 12 Syrians from an overwhelmed island camp was “a drop of water in the sea. But after this drop, the sea will never be the same,” Francis said.

During his hospitalization in early 2025, one of those families that settled in Rome said Francis didn't just change their lives.

“He wanted to begin a global dialogue to let world leaders know that even an undocumented migrant is not something to fear,” said Hasan Zaheda.

His wife, Nour Essa, added: “He fought to broadcast migrant voices, to explain that migrants in the end are just human beings who have suffered in wars.”

The news of Francis' death shocked the family and they mourned “with the whole of humanity,” Zaheda said.

In December 2021, Francis again had a dozen asylum-seekers brought to Italy, this time following his visit to Cyprus.

Feb. 17, 2016, at the US-Mexico border

Celebrating a Mass near the US border in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, that was beamed live to neighboring El Paso, Texas, Francis prayed for “open hearts” when faced with the “human tragedy that is forced migration.”

Answering a reporter’s question while flying back to Rome, Francis said a person who advocates building walls is “not Christian.” Trump, at the time a presidential candidate, was campaigning to do just that, and responded that it was “disgraceful” to question a person’s faith. He criticized the pope for not understanding “the danger of the open border that we have with Mexico.”

Oct. 24, 2021, Vatican City

As pressures surged in Italy and elsewhere in Europe to crack down on illegal migration, Francis made an impassioned plea to end the practice of returning those people rescued at sea to Libya and other unsafe countries where they suffer “inhumane violence.”

He called detention facilities in Libya “true concentration camps.” From there, thousands of migrants are taken by traffickers on often unseaworthy vessels. The Mediterranean Sea has become the world’s largest migrant grave with more than 30,000 deaths since 2014, when the International Organization for Migration’s Missing Migrants Project began counting.

Feb. 12, 2025, Vatican City

After Trump returned to the White House in part by riding a wave of public anger at illegal immigration, Francis assailed US plans for mass deportations, calling them “a disgrace.”

With Trump making a flurry of policy changes cracking down on immigration practices, Francis wrote to US bishops and warned that deportations “will end badly.”

“The act of deporting people who in many cases have left their own land for reasons of extreme poverty, insecurity, exploitation, persecution or serious deterioration of the environment, damages the dignity of many men and women,” he wrote.

US border czar Tom Homan immediately pushed back, noting the Vatican is a city-state surrounded by walls and that Francis should leave border enforcement to his office.

When Vance visited over Easter weekend, he first met with the Vatican's secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin. Afterward, the Holy See reaffirmed cordial relations and common interests, but noted “an exchange of opinions” over current international conflicts, migrants and prisoners.