UN Report Reveals Systematic Abuse of Migrants and Refugees in Libya

Tripoli: Migrants, refugees, and asylum-seekers in Libya are enduring ruthless and systematic human rights violations, including killings, torture, sexual violence, and trafficking, according to a new report published today by the UN human rights office, OHCHR. According to United Nations, the report covers the period from January 2024 to December 2025, documenting what it calls an exploitative model preying on migrants, asylum-seekers, and refugees in situations of heightened vulnerability. This has been described as a brutal and normalized reality that has become business as usual in Libya. Based on interviews with nearly 100 migrants, asylum-seekers, and refugees from 16 countries across Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia, the report details harrowing accounts of abduction, arbitrary detention, and extreme abuse. An Eritrean woman, detained for six weeks at a trafficking house in Tobruk, eastern Libya, shared her traumatic experience, expressing that she wished she had died due to the horrors she en dured. She described being raped repeatedly by multiple men and witnessing the abuse of girls as young as 14, with her release only secured after her family paid a ransom. The report highlights widespread abuse and exploitation, revealing that migrants are rounded up by criminal networks, often with ties to Libyan authorities, and transferred to detention facilities without due process. Many experience slavery, forced labor, forced prostitution, extortion, and the confiscation and resale of their belongings and identity documents. Interceptions of migrants at sea by Libyan actors are frequently violent and dangerous, involving excessive force and reckless maneuvers. Those captured are forcibly returned to Libya, where they face renewed cycles of abuse. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Trk, emphasized the relentless nature of the nightmare these individuals face, driven by the greed of traffickers and those in power who profit from this system of exploitation. The Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Libya, Hanna Tetteh, added that detention facilities have become breeding grounds for gross violations of human rights. Trk and Tetteh underscored the urgent need for life-saving search and rescue operations at sea and appealed to the European Union and other international partners to suspend interceptions and returns to Libya until robust human rights safeguards are in place. Trk stressed that the suffering of migrants and refugees in Libya must end, asserting that protecting their rights and dignity is an obligation under international law.