Horrors of Migrant Kidnapping in Libya

 Illegal immigrants during their deportation to a detention center in Tripoli after being rescued from drowning (Getty Images)
Illegal immigrants during their deportation to a detention center in Tripoli after being rescued from drowning (Getty Images)
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Horrors of Migrant Kidnapping in Libya

 Illegal immigrants during their deportation to a detention center in Tripoli after being rescued from drowning (Getty Images)
Illegal immigrants during their deportation to a detention center in Tripoli after being rescued from drowning (Getty Images)

In the Egyptian town of Kafr Abou Negm, the ghost of death looms everywhere. News coming from Libya is coated with the stench of blood. Everyone wearily awaits any piece of information about the group of youth who secretly left the country in hopes of reaching Europe but instead drowned in Mediterranean waters.

A few days dominated by frustration and despair had passed with matters on the other side seemingly bleak and horrific.

Some of those who survived the drowning were being tortured with iron sticks and burned with fire in the “Bir Al-Ghanam” camp for irregular migrants, located southwest of the Libyan capital, Tripoli.

This tragedy is just a small-scale version of the dozens of crimes that migrants are subjected to, who infiltrate Libya through the vast desert, coming to it from different paths and capitals.

Some drown, some reach the “European Paradise,” others disappear inside prisons or narrow zones roofed with wood and metal sheets run by smuggling gangs. Those kidnapped await a mysterious fate, perhaps worse than death at sea.

All smuggling routes are controlled by a large mafia with local and regional reach. It operates inside the Libyan borders and from cities overlooking the Mediterranean coast, such as Sabratah.

Those coming from Egypt, Sudan and Somalia may meet with those who came through Chad and Niger. They are joined by more migrants coming from Ghana and the Ivory Coast.

All of them remain, since their departure from their homes, in the custody of the “broker”, who takes them on rugged paths until they settle in Libya, far from the watchful eyes of security authorities.

But if they fall into the grip of human-trafficking gangs, the matter may be completely different. They will be as good as dead as everything with these mafias has a price.

Even entering the toilet and drinking water might cost steeply.

Asharq Al-Awsat monitored some stories of bloody torture committed inside irregular immigration camps, beginning with beating migrants with whips and iron pipes, and ending with burning their bodies with fire to force their families to pay the ransom required for their release.

Some of these crimes are committed inside official detention facilities in Tripoli, including Ghout al-Shaal, while others are carried out in camps supervised by armed groups, or in secret warehouses.

Migrants pouring into Libya across its vast borders seems to fall in the interest of many segments.

Beneficiaries include militias and gangs professed for smuggling. Also, some tribes in the south of Libya are accused of exploiting the chaos that struck the North African country over the past decade to profit from the smuggling of people, weapons, drugs, and fuel.

But the interesting thing is that human trafficking has opened another evil door, the organ trade.

In Libya, African immigrants are being killed and having their organs carved out by specialized doctors. The organs are then sold for huge sums of money.

From time to time, security patrols find decomposing bodies of migrants in the Libyan desert.

Libya has witnessed a noticeable increase in the flow of migrants towards European shores, considering the relative calm the country is witnessing at present.

Nevertheless, the local coast guard forces and European ships working to rescue migrants are returning them to Libya.

The speech of most Libyan officials is devoid of any responsibility for the crimes of abuse of migrants, and in this regard, Brigadier-General Al-Mabrouk Abdel Hafeez said that his country “has become a victim, and was left alone in the face of this issue, which countries have been unable to address.”

The UNHCR says that nearly 5,000 refugees and asylum seekers are registered with it, of whom about 45% are men, 22 % are women, and 33% are children.

The International Organization for Migration also recorded the rescue of 969 migrants from drowning from December 19 to 25.



Gazans’ Daily Struggle for Water After Deadly Israeli Strike

 Palestinians wait for donated food at a community kitchen in Gaza City, in the northern Gaza Strip, Monday, July 14, 2025. (AP)
Palestinians wait for donated food at a community kitchen in Gaza City, in the northern Gaza Strip, Monday, July 14, 2025. (AP)
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Gazans’ Daily Struggle for Water After Deadly Israeli Strike

 Palestinians wait for donated food at a community kitchen in Gaza City, in the northern Gaza Strip, Monday, July 14, 2025. (AP)
Palestinians wait for donated food at a community kitchen in Gaza City, in the northern Gaza Strip, Monday, July 14, 2025. (AP)

The al-Manasra family rarely get enough water for both drinking and washing after their daily trudge to a Gaza distribution point like the one where eight people were killed on Sunday in a strike that Israel's military said had missed its target.

Living in a tent camp by the ruins of a smashed concrete building in Gaza City, the family say their children are already suffering from diarrhea and skin maladies and from the lack of clean water, and they fear worse to come.

"There's no water, our children have been infected with scabies, there are no hospitals to go to and no medications," said Akram Manasra, 51.

He had set off on Monday for a local water tap with three of his daughters, each of them carrying two heavy plastic containers in Gaza's blazing summer heat, but they only managed to fill two - barely enough for the family of 10.

Gaza's lack of clean water after 21 months of war and four months of Israeli blockade is already having "devastating impacts on public health" the United Nations humanitarian agency OCHA said in a report this month.

For people queuing at a water distribution point on Sunday it was fatal. A missile that Israel said had targeted fighters but malfunctioned hit a queue of people waiting to collect water at the Nuseirat refugee camp.

Israel's blockade of fuel along with the difficulty in accessing wells and desalination plants in zones controlled by the Israeli military is severely constraining water, sanitation and hygiene services according to OCHA.

Fuel shortages have also hit waste and sewage services, risking more contamination of the tiny, crowded territory's dwindling water supply, and diseases causing diarrhea and jaundice are spreading among people crammed into shelters and weakened by hunger.

"If electricity was allowed to desalination plants the problem of a lethal lack of water, which is what's becoming the situation now in Gaza, would be changed within 24 hours," said James Elder, the spokesperson for the UN's children's agency UNICEF.

"What possible reason can there be for denying of a legitimate amount of water that a family needs?" he added.

COGAT, the Israeli military aid coordination agency, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Last week, an Israeli military official said that Israel was allowing sufficient fuel into Gaza but that its distribution around the enclave was not under Israel's purview.

THIRSTY AND DIRTY

For the Manasra family, like others in Gaza, the daily toil of finding water is exhausting and often fruitless.

Inside their tent the family tries to maintain hygiene by sweeping. But there is no water for proper cleaning and sometimes they are unable to wash dishes from their meager meals for several days at a time.

Manasra sat in the tent and showed how one of his young daughters had angry red marks across her back from what he said a doctor had told them was a skin infection caused by the lack of clean water.

They maintain a strict regimen of water use by priority.

After pouring their two containers of water from the distribution point into a broken plastic water butt by their tent, they use it to clean themselves from the tap, using their hands to spoon it over their heads and bodies.

Water that runs off into the basin underneath is then used for dishes and after that - now grey and dirty - for clothes.

"How is this going to be enough for 10 people? For the showering, washing, dish washing, and the washing of the covers. It's been three months; we haven't washed the covers, and the weather is hot," Manasra said.

His wife, Umm Khaled, sat washing clothes in a tiny puddle of water at the bottom of a bucket - all that was left after the more urgent requirements of drinking and cooking.

"My daughter was very sick from the heat rash and the scabies. I went to several doctors for her and they prescribed many medications. Two of my children yesterday, one had diarrhea and vomiting and the other had fever and infections from the dirty water," she said.