How do "international networks" bring African children to be trafficked and smuggled into Europe?
Big human traffickers hide behind "false names" to round up boys from Africa and Asia for gangs to use them in forced labor, prostitution, and armed groups. Asharq Al-Awsat is tracking cross-border smuggling routes.
He called me from Italy in a frightened, trembling voice. "My brother Adham traveled to Libya, and there was no news of him. We no longer know if he is alive or dead," he told me. This was one of the calls between us, during which Egyptian Osama Abdel-Tawab Amin informed me in October 2022 about what happened to his brother Adham, 14, who had traveled from Egypt to Libya, heading towards the city of eastern Libyan city of Benghazi.
Adham, born and raised in the southern Egyptian Assiut Governorate, is one of thousands of minors from several Arab and African countries who long dreamed of emigrating to Europe. Adham is one of those who surrendered themselves to "brokers" to start a "journey of wandering" that may end in either prison, on Europe’s shores, or perhaps a return to their countries, but this time to their "last resting place".
Asharq Al-Awsat investigated these incidents in the Nile Delta to Sidi Barrani near the Libyan border, reaching other countries, including Sudan and Chad. It sought to document extensive operations that smuggle minors, and explore how they infiltrate Libya, and what parties are involved and benefitting from the situation.
In early 2021, we have observed an increase in Egyptian, African and Syrian families reporting that their children had travelled to Libya and whose fate is unknown. Families were looking for whoever could help return their children. They spoke of how they were “being scammed by brokers."
Part of this tragedy was unfolded in front of the back entrance of the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs building, overlooking the Cairo Nile. Asharq Al-Awsat witnessed a large number of complaints they submitted there. Complaints were also sent to the Egyptian parliament.
The beginning of tragedy ... a broker
In mid-March 2022, the coastguard in the eastern Libyan city of Tobruk announced that a migrant boat sank in the Mediterranean Sea, off the Wadi Umm Al-Shawsh area. It was carrying a number of migrants, including about 18 young Egyptians. After days of searching for the missing, the family of Egyptian child Amr Sayed Anwar, 15, that lives in one of the villages of Dakahlia Governorate, north of Cairo, was told that their son was among the drowned.
About a month after the incident, I contacted Amr's father, who lives in a village near Sinbalawin in Dakahlia. The man, who is about 50 years old and works as a daily-paid farmer, said the authorities in Libya have not found the body of his son, tearfully adding: "I lost my son forever".
The man's breakdown prevented me from inquiring about how he traveled to Libya, but he exploded angrily when he mentioned the "broker".
"I paid 30,000 pounds, (US$ 1,000) and Amr traveled with 22 others of his age and may be older. They traveled to Marsa Matrouh to meet the broker. After they arrived in Libya, the broker, again, asked for an additional 70,000 pounds for his travel to Italy."
I left the Anwar family, consisting of four daughters, all under 20 years of age and a child younger than seven, to their grief and poverty. I went to see the broker after the father gave me his phone number. It was clear that the "brokerage market", like any other, is subject to supply and demand, bargaining and negotiation and that each Libyan region has a price paid by those wishing to go to it. Prices are also decided based on proximity to the Egyptian border.
It turned out that the broker is widely popular among those wishing to emigrate clandestinely in a number of rural governorates in the Nile Delta, although he lives in Sidi Barrani, 570 kilometers northwest of Cairo. The broker did not respond to any requests for an interview concerning his activity in transporting those wishing to travel across the border. However, he responded to us when we introduced ourselves as parents wishing to send their children abroad.
During the first phone call, I asked him to help smuggle three boys to Libya. He didn't mind and asked me about which region they wanted to go. Broker Abu Mazen (a pseudonym), whose accent is a mix of Egyptian and Libyan, did not give me time to answer. He went on to specify the required amount and said that he could transfer any number across the Egyptian border to the Libyan inland. He added, as if reassuring me: "I consider them my children, I swear."
About ten days later, I called Abu Mazen, and it seemed that he forgot our conversation due to the high number of calls he receives, so he asked me to remind him of our past talk. Then, I asked to meet him, and, reluctantly, he asked that we meet a week later in Matrouh.
This call was at the end of May 2022, and before the agreed date, he felt that it would be more appropriate for both of us to meet in Alexandria, as he was going to visit one of his relatives.
In a café overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, in the Asafra area of Alexandria, 230 kilometers north of Cairo, we met as agreed. We talked about how to bring young people together, and how to smuggle them out of the country.
It struck me that the 60-year-old man was speaking comfortably, but when we get to the details, he became cautious. While boasting, Abu Mazen, whose phone did not stop ringing, began to show how he has a strong network of relations inside Libya. He suddenly said: "I do not exploit young people or deceive them. They just come to ask us to smuggle them to Libya, and we help them and leave them only within the area they specify.”
Abu Mazen referred to the many phone calls he received in less than an hour that we spent together at the café, as proof of the growing demand for his services. He was also keen to show that his services are not overpriced "like others."
He added: “We take care of others’ children. I take 20,000 Egyptian pounds (about US$650) per person to move from the Hodoud Barani to Tripoli, and 15,000 pounds to Benghazi. Others would ask for 40,000 and 50,000 pounds, and then leave the young people on the road, or sell them". He added: "The Libyan dinar now is equivalent to five Egyptian pounds, (US$1 is equivalent to 5.12 Libyan dinar).”
In response to persistent appeals to show me the smuggling routes, Abu Mazen said: "This has been my job for years, and I have my men in Libya, ten hours away from the Customs Office side. Young people arrive in Libya, and I only leave them when each arrives at the place he wants." I asked him: "which customs?" He replied with a Libyan accent: " Emsaed Customs".
Very discreetly, he said he brings young people from different governorates to the city of Matrouh on a specific date, before transporting them to Salloum, and from there, "they walk in desert roads and routes, along the Emsaed crossing border between Egypt and Libya".
Having asked him again about the age of young people he helps smuggle, he showed no interest. He only said: “We take the money. We don’t care about their ages.” Laughing, he added: “There is a lot of demand for transporting young people. But what can we do? This is what their families want."
He explained that those he smuggles "are planning to migrate from Libya to Europe... a trip costs aroun 120,000 to 150,000 Egyptian pounds." He said he does not receive the full agreed amount in advance so as to "reassure people" that he is not a swindler. He added: "They will not get away with the money. My men in Libya are there.”
International networks
Due to increasing smuggling of young people by Abu Mazen and other brokers in the Egyptian Delta, the current situation indicates that smuggling operations exceed the capabilities of the "local network".
Considering that irregular migration operations are carried out clandestinely, there are no related official statistics. Yet, the International Organization for Migration revealed the presence of more than 117,000 Egyptian migrants in Libya between December 2021 and January 2022.
What we have from Libya inland, and the details the families of migrant children have shared with us reveal a ramified and extended international network linking Libya with several countries, including Egypt and Sudan. The most well-known of these is, perhaps, the "Kidan" network, led by an Eritrean wanted by the Interpol.
The Italian "Information Security Policy" annual report for 2022 refers to "organized criminal networks in Libya, in the cities of Zuwara, Zawiya and Sabratha (to the west). The report considers these networks among chief reasons for the remarkable increase in migration by sea noticed the same year. The report also reveals "criminal partnerships made up of Tunisian and Italian brokers involved in various illegal trafficking operations, including facilitating irregular migration."
The report attributed the "high pressure of irregular migration flows in 2022, towards Italy and Europe, especially from Africa, the Middle East and Asia", to factors such as "political instability, armed conflicts, severe climate change and a strong demographic push."
In addition to the report, Greek authorities are investigating seven Egyptians who were arrested there, according to press reports. They are accused of smuggling 484 people from Syria, Sudan, Pakistan and Egypt, including 128 boys and nine girls, after a rickety boat carrying them from Libya lost its way, near the southern Mediterranean island of Crete.
From Adham, the Egyptian.... to Eissa, the Sudanese
The tragedy of the family of the drowned child Amr, is not much different from what many other families suffered. They all share the same motives and social reasons that prompted them to accept the departure of their children from Egypt by means of smuggling through "brokers". "Many people have traveled to Italy, and God helped them. They built new houses, and their circumstances improved", says the mother of child Mossad Mohammed Ismail, from Ezbet Akl, in Mansoura city.
What is remarkable here, as we moved from one governorate to another and listened to some families, is that large groups of those who have fled to Libya, at least over the past year, are children and minors between the ages of 12 and 17. One of them is Adham Abdel Tawab Amin, who left from Borg El Arab Airport in Alexandria, according to his brother Osama, before enrolling in the third grade of middle school.
With great sadness, Osama explained that "the broker got Adham into the plane from Borg El Arab in Alexandria, to Benina airport in Benghazi on August 22, 2022. From there he moved to western Libya. We do not know his whereabouts.”
There are many tragic stories that we have seen related to many children detained in Libya. Some of them are held at official detention facilities, others are believed to be in the grip of human trafficking gangs, while others may have been washed away by the sea.
Our list is long and has hundreds of children from Egypt and as well as other African countries. Apart from Adham, there are Ayman Tarek Al-Bari, 14, Marwan Abdul-Salam ,15, Osama Hamed Abdul-Ati, 17, Ahmed Mohammed Faiq, 17, and Bilal Mohammed al-Jamal, 17.
We met their families successively in Egyptian governorates. There are also the Sudanese Mubarak Harun Musa, who disappeared five years ago, and Abdul Mawla Issa, with whom we spoke by phone. It turned out that he entered Libya at a young age, and recently left it at the age of 23 on an evacuation trip to Rwanda.
Between Quneitra and Tripoli
Days pass by so slowly and heavily for the families of some migrant children in Libya, without any news to reassure them of their whereabouts. A Syrian mother from the southern Syrian province of Quneitra told us that the last contact with her son Haroun Abdul Hadi, 17, who went missing in Libya, was in October 2022.
"He last spoke to me from the city of Zuwara before the police took him to a shelter in Tripoli,” she told Asharq Al-Awsat through WhatsApp. "I want to check on him. He flew to Libya from Benina airport officially. We have had enough sufferings in our country.”
The tragedy of Haroun is similar to the stories of many Egyptian children and minors, but they are younger. Among them is Ayman Tarek al-Barri from the Asharqia governorate, 83 kilometers north of Cairo, who has not yet enrolled in third grade in middle school.
His sister told us that he went to Libya through the "mountain", with the help of a Libyan smuggler named "Haj Riad," who charged him 120,000 Egyptian pounds to transport him to Europe. "They brought him back from the sea together with others, and he is now locked up in Ain Zara prison in Tripoli,” she added.
A similar story can be found in the case of Marwan Abdel Salam, whose mother told Asharq Al-Awsat with a tone full of heartbreak and fear, that he was smuggled into Libya before security forces arrested him. Now, he is detained in the Reayat Al-Sekka prison in Tripoli. Having asked the Anti-Illegal Migration Agency in Tripoli about their whereabouts, we were told by a security official that they were about to be deported.
Panic among the migrants’ families couldn’t hide the sense of guilt among some of them. They felt they were the cause of the plight of their children. Some of these families have openly admitted to us that they sold most of their possessions to smuggle their children. Some of these children have not even completed their primary education, while others were being treated at the children Cancer Hospital in Egypt (57357 Hospital). Their pretext was the "temptations of brokers,” who told them that if their children traveled to Europe, they would go to school, work and send them a lot of money.
Other painful stories are told by Egyptian MP Dr. Sahar Etman, who said in a statement to Asharq Al-Awsat: "I have about 2,170 requests from Egyptian families complaining about the disappearance or imprisonment of their sons and daughters, including many children, in Libya.”
The MP, who confirmed to that a child who was being treated for cancer traveled to Libya, added: "This is a true; unfortunately, there are families who did everything to smuggle their children to Libya. What we care about now is the return of those imprisoned or missing to their families.”
The MP, who shows special concern over this issue, attributed the growth of this phenomenon to "what the fraudulent broker portrays to the families of these children. He deludes them into thinking that they will obtain citizenship, and appropriate work; and therefore, he could easily seize from them 120,000 or 150,000 Egyptian pounds for each to smuggling operation into Libya.”
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has already ratified the amendment of some provisions of the anti-illegal immigration law in April 2022. Anyone who commits, attempts or mediates the crime of smuggling of migrants would be punished with a maximum prison sentence and a fine of at least 200,000 Egyptian pounds.
There are Egyptian villages in various governotrates, including Assiut (Upper Egypt), Asharqia and Gharbia (Delta), where most of their young people fled to Italy through smuggling with the assistance of "brokers". Others sought to catch up with them out of "social jealousy" and to improve the living conditions of their families, no matter the cost of the trip.
Father of the child, Osama Hamed Abdul-Ati, 16, from Damanhour al-Wahsh village in the Gharbia governorate, told Asharq Al-Awsat about how his son traveled to Libya by smuggling with the assistance of brokers. "We sent him 20,000 pounds, and now he is imprisoned; we don't know his whereabouts.”
Running in the desert on tramadol
On the Egyptian-Libyan border, the first steps of the "crime of child trafficking" are taking place. An aspect of smuggling routes broker Abu Mazen kept secret will be revealed to us by Egyptian child Amr Atef Mohammed, 15, who returned to his family in Asharqia Governorate in December 2022. He will tell us about it later, and will reveal how a Libyan broker transported him with a group of young people from Matrouh by a "Bedouin" to an area inside Libya.
Part of the torment of the smuggling trip was revealed by the mother of one of the returnees from Libya, referred to as M.A. He is from a village in Bilbeis, Asharqia, and she said that "he has been suffering from disturbing nightmares that leave him terrified" since his return last December.
The mother, who is in her fifties, attributed this to what her son told her about his painful journey, which cost his poor family 120,000 Egyptian pounds, which they borrowed from relatives and acquaintances. She even had to sell her "tuk-tuk", the family’s source of income.
She added: "The broker's assistant who accompanied them in the desert trip was threatening to shoot them if they stopped running. He dissolved some tramadol tablets in a bottle of water to give those whose strength fails."
According to the accounts we got from returnees and their families, migrants, no matter how young, are forced to run for about 10 hours continuously before they reach the town of Emsaed inside the Libyan border or the Siwa Oasis path in Egypt, facing the Al Jaghbub Oasis in Libya.
MP Dr. Sahar Etman, quoting an Egyptian family she met, said that one of its sons had to "abandon his 10-year-old brother in the border area at gunpoint by the smuggler, so that he can join the rest of the group.”
According to a Libyan security expert, who requested anonymity for security reasons, such a group of migrants "becomes hostage to the broker's assistant, and he had to hand over the entire group to a bigger trader waiting for them in Libya."
Flights from Syria to Benghazi and back
If the escape by land is covered by the brokers and their assistants, how can minors get around by air? Here, Tarek Lamloum, a Libyan human rights lawyer and director of the "Baladi foundation for Human Rights," reveals how children pass through some airports. He spoke of increasing reports reaching them, and other human rights organizations, about the loss of contact with minors who arrived in Libya since early February 2022.
Lamloum links a new office for an airline in Benghazi, which he says organizes regular flights from Syria to Libya, to child smuggling operations. "Starting in 2019, we noticed minors entering the country. How can an airport allow unaccompanied children, for example, 14 or 15 years old, to enter planes?” he wondered.
Asharq Al-Awsat contacted Benina International Airport and the company concerned, and their officials confirmed that all their procedures are "in accordance with the law.”
However, Lamloum said: "The smugglers coordinate before the arrival of the flights. Once the passengers arrive in Benghazi, they are transferred to cities in western Libya, where the journey of their kidnapping and detention begins. Many times, minors are found in houses close to the sea, in preparation for their smuggling to European shores."
The story about the airline, which Lamloum accuses of "taking part in smuggling of children from Syria to Libya," was later confirmed by Byron Camilleri, the Maltese Interior Minister. On March 13, "The Times of Malta" newspaper quoted the minister as saying that his country asked the European Commission "to take action against human smugglers who send migrants from Bangladesh to Libya, with the intention of crossing to Europe.” He accused the airline, to which the Libyan human rights activist previously referred, of being among those involved.
It did not stop there, but almost ten days after the Maltese minister criticized the airliner, Algerian authorities announced the dismantling of an "international network" for smuggling migrants to Libya, and from there to Europe through Algerian territory.
According to the Algerian news website "An-Nahar online", the relevant authorities opened an investigation that lasted five months. The investigation allowed the Algerian police to track down the network that transported migrants from Syria and Lebanon to Benghazi airport. Meanwhile, the Central Department for Combating Organized Crime in Algeria announced that it had arrested 15 members of this network; they were nine Syrians and six Algerians, all of whom were brought before the courts.
Prostitution, organ trafficking and militias
The situation in Libya seemed frightening for the families of irregular migrants. News coming to Egypt, or to any African capital, indicates unknown and similar fates that many children in Libya are exposed to, including moving between prisons and official detention facilities, or "secret warehouses" belonging to armed groups.
In parallel with the "dream of wealth" promised by the brokers, large numbers of migrants are now living a painful reality, according to the Human Rights Watch Annual Report for 2023. The report warned that they are subjected to" ill-treatment, sexual assault, forced labor and extortion by members of armed groups, smugglers, and human traffickers.”
"Various foreign gangs stand behind bringing them from several African countries to Libya, with the intention of exploiting them, either in prostitution and begging, or facilitating their smuggling to Italy, after exhausting them financially and physically," a senior leader of the agency of Combating Illegal Migration in Tripoli said, while discussing the reasons why the migration of children to Libya has increased significantly, at least over the past year.
The security official, who sent us a statement and requested anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media, revealed to Asharq Al-Awsat that there are "gangs that bring children to be used for forced labor, obliging them to work for free in remote farms or in scrap stores.”
Having asked the security official about the information we received about trafficking of human organs of the migrants, he vehemently denied it. But days later, the General Directorate of Criminal Research in Sabha arrested a gang that it said was "involved in trafficking in human organs and smuggling irregular migrants from Southern to central Libya.”
The General Directorate of Criminal Investigation explained on December 25, 2022, that the gang members arrested belong to three different African nationalities.
The exploitation of some of these children for begging by "Libyan and African networks", or abusing them sexually, haunts many families who came to Libya, seeking asylum in Europe. A Syrian mother told us that her son, 14, "was detained by three people, who threatened to kill him, and took turns raping him.”
Ahmed Al-Morabet Al-Zaidani, head of the Legal Committee of the Victims Organization of Human Rights, informed us about what is happening behind the scenes with a larger group of migrant children, who are the "weakest point" both in detention centers and on the Libyan scene. "In addition to the physical violations previously suffered by the Sudanese child Mazen Adam, we have observed sexual abuse of four Syrian children in Tripoli who are asylum seekers registered with the UNHCR,” he said.
"Have you noticed the existence of gangs involved in the sale of children, as is the case with elderly migrants?" Asharq Al-Awsat asked Al-Zaidani. "These crimes may take place in the south-west and south-east of Libya," he answered.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres submitted a report to the UN Security Council at the beginning of April 2023, in which he revealed that migrant children were subject to violations in Libya, "including forced labor in armed groups.”
According to the report, many children have been victims of "trafficking and abuse," noting that the United Nations has verified 24 cases of children "abducted from Sudan, registered as asylum seekers, and later sent to Libya to be trafficked.”
‘Information for sale’
This crime goes beyond Egyptian nationals who went missing, to include other nationalities in Libya.
Human rights activist Zaidani informed us about what happened with a Moroccan mother who lost her son, and then unknown people alleged to her that they knew his whereabouts, while others claimed that he was in one of the shelters.
"This misinformation is a form of organized crime in itself, so that information is leaked about the name and family of the missing person, whether he is an immigrant or asylum seeker, and then his family is financially drained. There are several similar cases,” he said.
Apart from suffering, children may be separated from their migrant parents for various reasons, including death or kidnapping, to face an uncertain and dark future. One such incident is related to two children from Cameroon, whose mother was kidnapped a year ago in one of the regions of southern Libya while she was entering the country.
The two children told the "Baladi Foundation for Human Rights" that their mother was detained after she was unable to pay the rest of the agreed amount for the trip. The Foundation believes that the mother is more likely to be subjected to sexual exploitation at the hands of smugglers, after they allowed the children to continue along with the rest of the migrants.
The Story of the Sudanese Mazen
Mazen Adam, whose name was mentioned by the human rights activist Zaidani, is a Sudanese child whose story was reported in Libya and cast horrible doubts on the fate of his unaccompanied minor migrant peers.
The motherless Mazen, 14, was living with his father after he was released from the Ain Zara detention center. At the end of August 2022, gunmen kidnapped him in the city of Warshfana, southwest of Tripoli. Having continued to abuse him, they demanded a ransom of 5,000 Libyan dinars. They leaked a video as they took turns torturing him cruelly, and someone shouted at him: " I'm broke. Where is the money?”
Families search through Detention Centers and among the dead
Whenever news was announced about the drowning of a boat carrying irregular migrants in the Mediterranean, or sending it back to Libyan ports, it reverberates in several countries, including Egypt, Sudan and Syria, as much money was spent on this trip. Mothers sold their clothes, and fathers mortgaged what was left in the barn of cattle.
As the dreams of migrant families of "promised wealth" seemed similar, they now share same fears, and experience the pain of heartbreak for the loss of their children, either by drowning, or detention, and may not know a way to reach them.
Asharq Al-Awsat is investigating the fate of hundreds of missing and detained migrants in Libya, based on the testimonies of their families, lists obtained from inside prisons, detention centers and "secret detention centers”. Asharq Al-Awsat is also documenting the accounts of some of those who were released, and those who failed several times to escape to Europe by sea.
Six months of torture
The lists leaked from Libyan prisons and shelter centers include the names of migrants and minors from Egypt and several African countries in official prisons, including "Melita Tawila" prison, and shelter centers supervised by the Migration Agency of the Government of National Unity in Tripoli, such as "Ain Zara" shelter center, "Gut Sha'al", and "Treek Al-Sekka", the latter for migrant minors.
In Libya, there are also shelter centers belonging to armed groups, including the "Maya" (27 kilometers west of Tripoli) and managed by the "Stability Support Force" - closed in mid-February 2023 - along with other detention centers, including the "Wadi al-Hay" known as "Bir al-Ghanam" (southwest of the capital), which until recently housed about a thousand migrants, mostly Egyptians.
Local human traffickers control the fate of detainees in informal shelters, or secret headquarters. They belong to militias and organized crime gangs. The freedom of every prisoner depends on his/her family paying a "ransom," so that he/she can regain his/her and escape torture that amounts to deprivation of food, burning with fire, and sale to others, according to a report by the National Human Rights Committee in Libya.
A Chadian immigrant, A. S., through mediation from the security commander of Rabiana (150 kilometers from the city of Kufra, southeast Libya) area, recounted that "a gang of human traffickers detained him among 40 migrants, mostly children and minors, for more than six months in a dark warehouse near Rabiana". He told Asharq Al-Awsat that they were all "starved, sexually assaulted, burned with fire, and videotaped in order to bargain with their families to pay ransom.”
Notably, a Chadian migrant said that "the gang of three (two Libyans, and a third one of an African nationality unknown to him), released more than 20 detainees, after receiving US$5,000 from the family of each. But the rest of the abductees continued to be abused daily, until they managed to escape and inform a police patrol that was nearby. The money was transferred to phone numbers. There are also private money transfer offices in Libya that operate without licenses, and are not subject to state control.”
In June 2022, 20 bodies of Chadians and Libyans were found in the Libyan desert in the town of Kufra, along Chad-Libya border. The Missing Migrants Project has documented the deaths and disappearances of more than 5,600 people across the Sahara Desert since 2014.
Leaked lists
Circumstances within most shelter centers, especially those hidden from international organizations, seem the same. Generally, they are no different from what happened with the migrants in the "Rabiana storehouse," in terms of physical and sexual violations. According to Tarek Lamloum, director of the "Baladi Foundation for Human Rights", what is happening to the migrants detained throughout Libya, is a "kind of slavery".
"The sexual violations committed against migrants, pushing them towards forced labor in exchange for food, drink and access to toilets, is criminal forced labor," Lamloum said. He added that those who have entered institutions affiliated with the Migration Agency are still better off than others detained in secret premises or supervised by armed groups.
The search trip, according to the lists we received from Egyptian and African families, led us to discover that some of the children were detained by police, such as the Syrian Haroun Abdul Hadi, 17, whose mother told us that he was released after months of imprisonment. There is also the Egyptian Ahmed Fayek, whose mother provided us with his personal photo, and we spotted him days later in an identification parade in Sabratha Security Command before he was sent to Ain Zara prison. His mother was happy to see him again. "We feel alive again," she cried.
The Illegal Migration Agency in Libya says that due to large number of migrants detained in prisons and shelters across the country, it intensified "voluntary return" trips to home countries, or third host countries; but the numbers infiltrating Libya and held in its prisons remain much more.
However, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, in a report published on October 11, believes that migrants are "forced to (voluntarily return) to escape arbitrary conditions of detention and the threat of torture, ill-treatment and sexual violence, as well as enforced disappearance and extortion.”
One of those who escaped dark prisons, thanks to evacuation operations supervised by the International Organization for Migration and the Egyptian embassy in Tripoli, is Amr Atef Mohammed, 15, who we met in the Mashtoul Al-Souq town, Asharqia Governorate, Delta of Egypt, following his return in December 2022, after surviving long imprisonment.
Amr showed us the route of his smuggling trip from Matrouh, with the help of a Libyan broker referred to as F.M. He charged him 60,000 Egyptian pounds (nearly US$2000). The journey started from the Salloum plateau by walking at night in the desert for long periods. Amr added that the "Bedouin" assistant who accompanied them "kept moving them from one store to another along desert roads until they crossed the Libyan border.”
Like others, young Amr went to Libya to flee to Europe. He told us that "the Libyan coastguard forces arrested us, and returned us to the Ain Zara shelter center (Anbar Battalion 1).” he added that they were humiliated, before being transferred to the Tareek Al-Sekka Road.
There is a big difference between the Ain Zara center and Melita Tawila prison. The latter, although it belongs to the Ministry of Justice of the Government of National Unity, is widely known as "notorious". Several Syrian and Egyptian families have appealed to the embassies of their countries to act quickly to get their children out of these two facilities.
Egyptian Abdel Fattah Khodri, 62, complained that his son, along with a number of his villagers, including Mohammed Gouda Mahdi and Sameh Obeid, are suffering from diseases and scabies in the Melita Al-Tawila prison. Each family paid 150,000 pounds for the trip, and said their children may have been sold.
Magdy Saad Mujahid, 63, originally from the village of Kafr Hilal, Menoufia Governorate (north of Cairo), recounted the story of his son Khaled, who traveled to Libya, due to harsh economic circumstances, by means of smuggling. After a failed journey across the sea, he was detained in Ain Zara prison, after the so-called "Libyan Haj Riad" received 85,000 Egyptian pounds to help him get to Europe.
This case is not much different from the case of Mustafa Attia Al-Halwani, 18, from the village of Shabramals, Ghaarbiya Governorate, whose brother told Asharq Al-Awsat that "one of the brokers lured him to travel to Italy, along with two others. When he arrived in Libya, he was detained, and his family negotiated to pay 95,000 Egyptian pounds for his release.”
Ambassador Tamer Mustafa, the Egyptian charge d'affaires in Tripoli, in a press statement, affirmed that the diplomatic mission there is making great efforts, and is returning hundreds of irregular migrants to the country as soon as it gets travel documents for them.
The tragedy of the missing migrants in Libya is not limited to one country. Although there are no official statistics on the number of the missing, it seems that apart from Egyptians and Syrians, there are quite a few citizens of African countries, including Sudan. Here Ibrahim Haroun Moussa recounts the story of his brother Mubarak, who disappeared in Libya five years ago.
Mubarak came from the city of El Fasher (western Sudan) and his family has been searching for him since late May 2018. "We received news that Mubarak was imprisoned in Tajoura, and shortly after his release he was detained in a prison near the Libyan-Tunisian border," Ibrahim said.
Escape to the sea six times
Most of the boys and young people, who fled to Libya through its vast desert, are driven by the dream of migrating to the "European paradise" by sea, even if it costs them their lives. Among them was young Sudanese Abdul Mawla Issa who ventured to throw himself into the sea six times in three years.
The absence of Mubarak Haroun Moussa has buried the details of his journey, which even his family does not know. But Abdulmoula Issa told Asharq Al-Awsat the details of his great tragedy since he entered the country as a child through the Libya - Egypt – Chad triangle, until he left, after a journey of torment, at the age of 23.
Issa said he entered Libya before 2018, through the city of Kufra, and there he worked for a few months before moving west, arriving in Tripoli in early March 2020.
"I tried to escape from Tripoli to Europe by sea six times. But coastguards were returning us to Tripoli, but we were able to escape again," he said. On the sixth attempt, Issa said: "We could not escape, and were locked up in the city of Zuwara for seven months, I paid bail and got out of prison."
After four months, Issa told us that he had an interview with the UNHCR, and at the end of December 2021 they evacuated a group of migrants, including him, to Rwanda. Having arrived there, Issa informed us that he was heading to Norway to join some of his comrades who had escaped from torment in Libya. By the end of November 2022, Issa told us that he had started completing his education in Norway.
From ‘Kidan’ to ‘Radwan and Murad’
Extensive local and international mafias are behind the human trafficking and the attempts made by Issa and those with him to go into the sea six times. The business was promoted openly on social networking sites, advertising flee trips and their prices. This comes in parallel with the dismantling of the "largest human smuggling network" in Sudan, an operation in which the UAE police cooperated with the Interpol earlier this year.
Sudanese police arrested Eritrean citizen Kidan Zacharias Habt Mariam, known as "Kidan", 37, in coordination with the UAE authorities, according to Brigadier General Saeed Abdullah Al Suwaidi, Director General of the Federal Drug Control Department in the UAE.
Kidan was arrested in Ethiopia in 2020, but he fled after one year, and was subsequently sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment. According to Interpol, Kidan is wanted for leading a criminal organization that for years kidnapped, abused and extorted migrants from East Africa to smuggle them to Europe.
The Missing Migrants project has documented the deaths and disappearances of more than 5,600 people across the Sahara Desert since 2014, with 149 deaths recorded as of 2022.
On January 5, Al-Suwaidi announced: "We have now closed one of the most dangerous smuggling routes to Europe, through which thousands of migrants from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia and Sudan were transported through Libya, and from there to Europe.
If this is the story of Kidan, then who are Radwan and Murad, whose names are preceded by the surname "Haj" among those wishing to emigrate, and whose names are repeatedly mentioned by some?
Some families revealed to us that brokers like A.F, S.A.M. and S.B. in Egypt are just contractors working to gather young people and hand them over to a second and larger ring, until they reach large agents, including Radwan and Murad or others in Libya.
Social media is full of "video propaganda campaigns" for many human traffickers, including Radwan and Murad. The origins and the whereabouts of the two men remains unknown. They use fake names, and deal through intermediaries. This is how many Egyptians dealt with them, including Ayman Tarek al-Barri, according to what his sister told us. However, some migrants and their families believe that Murad is a Syrian, while Riad is a Libyan.
Stacked boats
The propaganda surrounding Riad and Murad, which usually relies on the testimonies of those who are believed to be migrants, failed to hide how hundreds of people wishing to emigrate to Europe, young or old, are packed on overcrowded boats like cattle.
This was evident in a video Asharq Al-Awsat received from one of the migrants, who was returned by the coastguards in western Libya in late January.
A boat capsized off the city of Qasr Al-Akhyar (75 kilometers east of the capital Tripoli) in mid-February. At least 73 migrants drowned. A team from the Red Crescent society in the city of Khums managed to recover 11 bodies.
The increase in the number of children migrating to Libya, with the intention of fleeing to Europe, during 2022 only, affirms that the matter has turned into a phenomenon. This prompted us to seek an explanation with UNICEF, but we received no response. Doctors without Borders also regretted that it did not have information on the same subject, and asked us to navigate its website, searching for relevant information.
According to a report by the International Organization for Human Rights in mid-April 2023, about 695,000 irregular migrants are in 100 Libyan municipalities, and they belong to more than 42 nationalities.
According to the report, financial difficulties remain the most pressing issue for more than three out of five migrants (61%), followed by problems with identity documents (30%), lack of Information (22%), security concerns (20%) and food and water insecurity (18%) in Libya.
Escape from the corpses
Residents of coastal Libyan cities are used to seeing the waves of the sea tossing some bodies believed to be of migrants who drowned during their trips to Europe, so much so that residents of the Qasr Al-Akhyar town were forced last summer to flee their homes and farms, because of horrible odors coming from corpses lying on the beach.
Given the reoccurrence of this phenomenon, Brigadier General Miftah Mohammed Haidar, the Security Commander of Khums area, announced that the city is facing a problem of piling corpses of drowned migrants piled up in morgue, demanding the allocation of a plot of land to be used as a graveyard.
The teams of the Libyan Red Crescent society always rushes to recover the bodies of migrants after notifying local and judicial authorities. Tawfiq Al-Shukri, director of the Information and Communication Office in Red Crescent, briefed Ashaq Al-Awsat on the efforts of relief teams to solve the crisis.
At least 2,300 people have died or gone missing in the Mediterranean since the beginning of 2022, while trying to cross on rickety and overcrowded boats that sailed from North Africa, mainly from Libya and Tunisia, according to the International Organization for Migration.
Italian police said the largest rate of migration flow during 2022 arrived from Libya with more than 53,000 illegal migrants, followed by Tunisia with more than 32,000.
Missing on land and at sea
Statements by the coastguard and anti-illegal migration authorities in Libya speak to appalling conditions suffered by dozens of children rescued from time to time, either in "secret warehouses," or huddled with other migrants on boats at sea. Still, some do not belong to either group, among them - for example – are Egyptians Bilal Mohamed El Gamal, Adham Abdel Tawab, Nader Mohamed El-bezzawi, as well as Sudanese Mubarak Haroun Moussa, in addition to some who came from Syria and Palestine.
Bilal al-Jamal, 17, came from the village of Nahtai, Gharbia governorate. His cousin Nahed told us that he went missing more than a year ago, after he told them by phone from Sirte that he was heading to Italy in a boat.
"We learned from those who accompanied him that the coastguard returned the boat after it had traveled hundreds of kilometers. We inquired about him in Libya. We were told by some he is in prison, and others are asking for money to tell us his whereabouts, but it turned out that they are all liars. His mother is suffering from poor health.”
Speaking of the broker S.A.M., Nahed said in a written statement: "We asked him about Bilal and he claimed he didn't know where he was; we are waiting for any news from Libya about him."
Sirte, overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, about 450 kilometers from Tripoli, is a starting point for irregular migrants to Europe, although this is not as high as the turnout in other cities such as Sabratha, Zawiya, Zuwara and Qara Bolli, east and west of the capital.
With each returning boat loaded with migrants from the open sea to Tripoli shore in the west or Tobruk in the east, families in the Egyptian countryside, and Arab and African countries scramble for information. They all hope that - despite the loss of their "lifetime savings" - their children have survived, while frustration appears on returnees because of their failure to reach European shores.
Over the past eight years, 51,000 irregular migrants have died and thousands have disappeared, according to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who said on the International Migrants Day on December 18 that "unregulated migration within the ruthless world of smugglers still has high costs.”
The dangers that Guterres warnings found an echo in the Gaza Strip, following the identification of eight dead young people whose families had reported them missing in Libya. Their relatives published photos of them while they were on a walk in the Martyrs’ Square in the center of Tripoli, before their bodies were found off the Tunisian coast. The young victims died after a boat carrying them among others, drowned.
Amid a large crowds and tributes of mourners, the coffins of the victims were lined up, and funeral prayers were held for them on December 18. Among the victims were the brothers Maher and Mohammed Talal Ramadan Al-Shaer, and their relative Sami Mansour Ajeya al-Shaer.
‘Return to life’
The lists of names of some migrants made it easier for us to track and find out their whereabouts, even though they could be deported at any time from one prison to another. This news was reassuring to some families, but left others dismayed and heartbroken.
Asharq Al-Awsat obtained photos and information confirming the presence of dozens of children of Arab and African nationalities in a shelter for "vulnerable groups - women and children" in Tripoli (Zawiya Street), including 72 Egyptian children. At that time, we learned that the center's administration was in the process of deporting a number of them, including Ahmed Faiq, who came from the village of Qarmala in Asharqia, whose family had previously been informed of his disappearance.
‘Vulnerable groups’ are lucky
Meanwhile, the Egyptian embassy in Tripoli was rushing to prepare travel documents for about 105 people, and on November 17, 2022, I received a letter from Ahmed Fayek's mother, confirming that he was transferred among other Egyptians to the Sikka shelter, completing the procedures for their return to Egypt.
Anyone who is admitted to the shelter for "vulnerable groups" must be lucky, because it has only been established recently, and its applicants receive special care from the Migration Agency, in contrast to widespread violations in many informal centers, up to rape, according to UN reports.
A few days later, the Migration Agency in Tripoli, led by Colonel Mohammed Al-Khoja, deported a large number of inmates. The detainee's mother, Ahmed Fayek, told us that he had arrived at Cairo International Airport.
The coastguard forces in east Libya managed to return many boats loaded with migrants, including a large boat carrying nearly 500 migrants, including a large number of children, from Egypt and Syria. The boat was welcomed in Tobruk by the mayor of the municipality Farag Boualkhatabia, who appeared carrying an infant described as the "youngest migrant" found along with his family.
Mystery of the burnt boat
Anyone who has lost a child or relative in Libya and is waiting for his/her return must feel horrified by disasters hitting migrant communities there. One of these disasters occurred on the shore of Sabratha after a bloody dispute broke out between a group of human traffickers, which ended with the shooting of the fuel tank of the boat carrying dozens of migrants.
The horrific crime, which took place on October 10, claimed the lives of 15 migrants, 11 of whom turned into charred bodies. Osama Abdel Tawab believes that his brother Adham was among the victims. Adham had arrived in Libya in August 2022, seeking a way to emigrate to Europe, but there was no news of him since his last call with his brother in Italy.
Osama links the incident of the boat burning with a call he received from his brother, the same day the local authorities announced the incident. "Adham called me from Zuwara, the day of the incident, and told me that he and 150 people were going to board a boat from Sabratha, and since then we have no news of him." Osama said.
In the city of Abnoub, Assiut Governorate (about 400 kilometers south of Cairo), 14-year-old Adham was living with his family. Before he and his peers enrolled in the third grade of middle school, he yearned to travel and emigrate to Europe.
The story of the Southern boy Adham has conflicting accounts. His brother said Adham spoke to him from Zuwara, and then indicated - according to latest news - that he moved to neighboring Sabratha. "The boat sailed for one and a half hours, then suddenly it turned out that the boat had a hole. They came back for the second time, and it drowned before the shore."
Asharq Al-Awsat contacted Libyan public prosecution in Tripoli on the matter, Consultant Ali Zubaida, the Deputy Prosecutor in the Libyan Attorney General's Office, informed us that there "were no Egyptians on the burnt Sabratha boat,” adding that "it was carrying only Eritrean and Ethiopian migrants.”
Sabratha is one of the most important departure points for irregular migrants to Europe, along with other cities on the west and east coasts, where the "smuggling mafia" is active, away from the eyes of the security authorities.
Osama's heartbreak over his brother is pushing him to constantly search for him. He told us: "We contacted all sides, we contacted many officials, and still don't know his whereabouts. Even the broker who facilitated his travel turned off his phone. What we want now is to match the DNA, to find out whether Adham's body is among the charred bodies or not."
Human traffickers in Libya usually charge large sums of money, not less than US$5,000, for moving their victims to secret hideouts, then pushing them to the sea. My main question to Adham's brother was: “Where did he get all this money, especially that he is still young, and he could not even work in Libya?" I couldn’t get an answer.
Osama told us that the people from Abnub recently found the body of a man who was accompanying his brother on the boat, named Haitham. They are also waiting for the return of another body of the Egyptian Islam Diab Abdo from Libya, and are still waiting for the return of Adham.
