Understanding Libya Since Gaddafi by Ulf Laessing

Author:Ulf Laessing
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2020-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

7

THE STRUGGLE TO SECURE LIBYA’S BORDERS

I could hear the weeping of women long before arriving at the quay at Tripoli’s naval base. A group of 11 Nigerian women sat hugging each other. They were part of a group of 45 survivors of an overloaded inflatable which they had hoped would deliver them to Italy, but which sunk off the Libyan coast a few hours after setting off. The migrants had been rescued by Libya’s coastguard, thanks to a new vessel they had just received from Italy. ‘Rescued’ was not really the right word to describe the situation of the mostly female survivors, since their dreams of a better life in Europe had been shattered and having endured months of abuse and violence at the hands of human traffickers who had brought them via Libya’s southern neighbour, Niger, to the coast. The women came from Benin City in southern Nigeria, a major hub for smugglers to coax women—who are often lured under false pretences—and then sell them to prostitution networks to pay off the price of their passage.1

Having been intercepted and brought to Tripoli, navy officials allowed UN staff just 30 minutes to give food to the survivors and treat their injuries. After this, militiamen in police uniforms shoved them inside a truck, transporting them to one of the country’s state detention centres, where up to 10,000 illegal migrants are held across different locations.2 ‘I never wanted to go back to Libya. Where will they bring me now?’ asked a terrified 23-year-old from Benin City, before an official cut short my interview and led her away. I had many more questions, but I was relieved I didn’t have respond to hers, knowing she might face rape, beatings and overcrowded cells with little food in the months ahead, thanks to the complicity between the European Union and Libya’s militia-driven rulers.

Libya had fallen off the Western policy agenda once Gaddafi was removed, with officials hoping the country’s former rebels would somehow work out a peaceful transition. There were attempts by Western countries, as we saw in the first years after the revolution, to build an army and police force, but these had failed as the country plummeted into further chaos. When the Government of National Accord (GNA) arrived in 2016, Western countries did not resume training camps for regular soldiers in NATO countries, working instead to support the Tripoli administration. Meanwhile, some were quietly putting out feelers to Haftar, who was building up his troops with help from the UAE and Egypt.

But there was one issue that brought European countries back into the fray, and saw them resume and boost military cooperation: the flow of migrants who had begun to travel by boat from Libya to Italy. With arrivals of migrants in the European Union jumping to more than a million in 20153—most of them Syrians and Iraqis arriving via the so-called Balkan route through Turkey, Greece and the Balkan countries, but also via the Mediterranean Sea—the European Union took a much greater interest in Libya.

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