The refugee/migrant crisis in Libya – some background to an open sore

The refugee/migrant crisis in Libya is ongoing and catastrophic. The purpose of this article is not to apportion blame, but to highlight the ongoing situation and some of the reasons behind it. The solutions are not obvious, but the first step must surely be an understanding of what is going on, in an extraordinarily complex situation. At the same time, the situation is simultaneously very simple: tens, hundreds of thousands are suffering and have little voice or immediate hope of help.  

Contents

Preface-Information Caveats; The objective; Libyan Elections; As far as the east is from the west…the GNA; Don’t touch the mutual income stream; The East: The HoR and LNA; The oil and the NOC; The great international Mediterranean-Maghreb Muddle; Uncle Sam’s see-saw; The lack of any united front from Europe; Centuries of efforts for control of the Central Med.; Moving on…urgently; Concerned for the people of concern? Too little attention on too much detention; Why oh why?; The Libyan Coast Guard; Success, if you choose which bits to ignore; Just not fair or reasonable to expect the Coast Guard to achieve this; In a nutshell, floating hopelessly on the Central Med.; Now what?; Stop Press – ongoing negotiations, ongoing conflict; Links to some key documents used.

Preface – information caveats

It is an understatement to suggest that the situation in Libya and involved countries is complex and constantly changing. Superimposed on that there is no shortage of both innocent misconception and deliberate misinformation. As far as possible I have tried to keep the following factual, but it is possible there are subtleties or changes, or things just plain incorrect, of which I am unaware. On such things I stand open to correction and/or alternative interpretations. Undoubtedly some of my own personal bias may creep in here and there, but hopefully there is enough information presented for at least a decent proportion to be classed as objective. Apologies if the fonts on some figures are small, but they should be individually downloadable and expandable.

 It is worth stressing right at the start a formal difference often made between refugees, fleeing countries out of the desperation of poverty or fear for their lives, and those who are “economic” migrants, whose motivation is a better way of life. In practice the reality is messy and far less clear. Whatever the definition, certain numbers speak for themselves: the numbers of people who are prepared to risk death making a Mediterranean crossing at the hands of criminal gangs, and the numbers who on intercept at sea would rather risk jumping into the sea than being returned to detention camps in Libya.

The objective

It is not the intention of this article to point fingers at any party involved in Libya. Certainly, there are things taking place which should be held to account – but that is not the job of this article. The objective is to throw a bit of understanding on a complex situation and in particular, the refugee/migrant aspect.  Many countries have interests they wish to protect in the Central Mediterranean and North Africa, and to note they have these interests and are involved in the situation in Libya is not intended implicitly as a criticism. 

The hope is that simple facts speak for themselves, and so I have tried not to load statements with too much personal bias. I have them, but I also recognise that many legitimate interests are being anxiously protected by those on all sides. 

I also need to make clear that where I use the term “Islamist” I use it only in a context of a political movement with a strong Islamic theme and not one with any inherent negative connotation.  Such movements occupy many different positions on the democracy, theocracy, autocracy spectrum.  

Where I do not hold back is in proclaiming an urgent need to somehow address the welfare of refugees and civilians caught up in this conflict and its side-effects. To be fair, almost all sides involved already proclaim this. To know precisely what the answer is, is difficult for all involved. To stop the worst happening, obtaining a wider knowledge of what is going on - and why such proclamations are having so little effect on the ground - might be useful.

Libyan elections

Libya emerged brutalised from the chaos surrounding the end of the Gadhafi era in 2011. In the year that followed, various provinces and factions, perceiving themselves for decades oppressed, sought to protect their own interests. The historically tribal nature of Libya quite naturally led to an instinctive consolidation into these provincial and tribal loyalties.

Nevertheless, an election in 2012 took place with a 62% turnout. However, the elections were marred by disruption, and a sense of disenfranchisement by many minority groups, including some that were banned from participating. Something called the National Forces Alliance or NFA emerged with the most seats: 39/80, but the remaining seats were split amongst a large number of smaller parties and independents, creating a complex web of loyalties and grievances. The results, the closest thing to a mandate Libya has received recently, had 48% of the vote for the NFA - a relatively moderate, progressive, Islamist party, with 10% supporting the Justice and Construction Party - aligned with the wider Muslim Brotherhood movement in North Africa. No other party achieved more than 4.5% of the vote or 3 seats. 

Resulting instability led to a second election in 2014, which at 18% turnout always struggled to achieve a credible mandate. It constituted a mixture of liberal, nationalist, and Islamist factions loosely agglomerated in collections of independent candidates. In the resulting arguments, constitutional claims were brought before the Libyan Supreme Court which effectively ruled that election void. The election was meant to hand over power from the previous assembly, known as the General National Congress (GNC) in Tripoli to a new Libyan House of Representatives (HoR). 

In the confusion that followed the Supreme Court Ruling, the UN effectively ignored it and recognised the newly elected House of Representatives, while the GNC, controlled by militias in western areas, refused to recognise it and refused to disband. Recognising the power that these militias held in Tripoli, the newly elected and now internationally recognised House of Representatives refused to sit in Tripoli, and instead set up camp in Tobruk, in Eastern Libya. It’s sometimes referred to as the Tobruk Government.

As far as the east is from the west…the GNA

Hence emerged a situation which has more or less persisted since. Two main opposing groups (Fig 1). A Tripoli based government that Libya’s own Supreme Court effectively said remains the official government, and an Eastern Libya based Government which for a while the UN and international community initially recognised. Both were and are vying with each other for power, and while simultaneously engaging in military conflict, are still, nominally at least, periodically talking to each other to try and resolve the conflict. In 2015 this peaked in an agreement to form something called the Government of National Accord or GNA, uniting both camps, and in theory this now exists. 

The GNA was brokered by the UN and accompanied by a formal ceasefire but in practice the two factions have agreed on little fundamental detail - and appear still to see too much to be gained by ongoing fighting to settle for peace. The GNA is based in Tripoli, but it operates without a huge military presence of its own, and military defence of Tripoli against attacks from the HoR supporting LNA is still effectively in the hands of GNC aligned militias, and more recently the involvement of Turkey. Only some factions of the GNC support the GNA and some others see it as unduly biased towards the competing House of Representatives. Bizarrely then, the GNA now resides as the officially, UN sanctioned internationally recognised government in Tripoli, but only persists at the mercy of the only partly supportive GNC militias who effectively control Tripoli.

Don’t touch the mutual income stream

In a telling show of what is possible however, both parties in July 2016 agreed to reunite the eastern and western managements of the National Oil Company (NOC) – not too surprising as both sides depend on incomes from oil and gas in their respective areas of control, and any sense of threat to either side sends jitters to the customers of both. This pragmatism continued into 2017 by which time all nine of Libya’s main oil terminals had resumed function. There remain occasional hiccups to this story, but production until very recently had remained approximately steady and mostly protected by both sides. In the last week or so, the situation has changed - more later.

The only party which previously wanted to disrupt the flows of oil, were ISIL (the Islamic state of Iraq and the Levant) who had less stake in the existing income streams from oil and gas. For its part the NOC has tried earnestly to maintain normality throughout the conflict, despite fatal attacks on facilities and its HQ in Tripoli. It is keenly aware that the welfare of the Libyan economy and the welfare of its citizens in both camps, depends on its continued functioning. 

The East: The HoR and LNA

The Eastern Tobruk Government is the side supported by the Libyan National Army – or LNA (Fig1), commanded by Field Marshal Hatfar. The LNA never really got on board with the new GNA brokered by the UN, and later in 2016 moved to secure control of key oil terminals in eastern Libya. Talks in October 2017 between the GNA and LNA broke down and Field Marshal Hatfar declared previous agreements void.

Battles in 2017 took control of Libya’s second city Benghazi for the LNA, and in 2019, the city of Derna. The LNA - both through direct control and various alliances - now oversees most of Libya, apart from western areas and the area around the capital Tripoli. Its control includes the bulk of the oil resources in the prolific hydrocarbon areas of Sirte Basin (Fig 1). Field Marshal Hatfar is currently involved in trying to wrest control of Tripoli from the GNC militias in an offensive dating from April 2019.  

Periodic attacks and bombardments take place, sponsored by a number of foreign powers keen to protect or increase their own interests, killing militia combatants. Whether intentionally or otherwise, civilians, foreign aid workers and refugees in detention centres have also been injured and killed in the attacks. Attacks, accidentally or otherwise, have on numerous occasions included areas of suburban residential Tripoli. 

With regards to the bigger picture, Field Marshall Hatfar certainly seems adept at fostering relationships with diverse tribal leaders in the south of Libya, including the Tuareg and Tebu in the city of Sebha (Fig 1). Many tribes in remote areas of Libya will understandably be keen on securing stability for themselves, and assurances provided by the military strength and regional control of the LNA is no doubt an attraction, not to mention the LNA’s increasing control of the country’s oil wealth.

The oil and the NOC

The NOC has tried to stay neutral and internally unified. There are disputes though, between the factions, about where the revenues from NOC oil sales go, with most of it residing in Central Bank in Tripoli, which is GNA aligned. The LNA has tried to establish rival oil sales from Benghazi but UN sanctions mostly prevent this. Hence the strange situation where the east controls most (but not all) oil production (Fig1), while the west gets the revenues, and the NOC tries to navigate a way through the middle. In the last week or so, perhaps in a prelude to ongoing negotiations, the LNA has obstructed production in the eastern, most prolific parts of Libya.

The great international Mediterranean-Maghreb Muddle

For all the mayhem within Libya, the international community finds itself in an equally confused position (Fig 2 & Fig 3). The militia backed GNC which essentially evolved on paper into one part of the GNA, continues to operate in Tripoli and Western Libya, following the Supreme Court Ruling. It is Islamist in flavour, with backing from the Muslim Brotherhood, and Libya Dawn, amongst various other smaller Islamist leaning militias. Partly because of these Islamist roots, the GNC/GNA based in Tripoli draws direct support from Qatar and Turkey. 

Turkey has also recently agreed territorial claims over much of the Eastern Mediterranean with the government in Tripoli which has only served to further alienate its opponents, particularly Egypt, Greece, and Cyprus, on whose competing claims the new claim overlaps. Turkey, already besieged by the international community over Syria, is in no mood to modify its response elsewhere, and openly supplies military equipment including drones for the defence of Tripoli against LNA attacks, something which has become even more overt recently with Turkish and Turkish-sponsored Syrian troops arriving to defend Tripoli from the LNA. 

The Muslim Brotherhood faction within the GNC/GNA is a wider Middle Eastern and North African movement and achieved prominence in Egyptian elections in 2012, which it won, but it was subsequently overthrown by protests and the military. The subsequent military-supported government in Egypt has banned it as a party.  The current Egyptian Government is therefore no great friend of the GNC/GNA in Tripoli and is amongst LNA supporters. Other strong supporters for Field Marshall Hatfar include the UAE, which the UN has suggested is supplying weapons to the LNA side, and it continues to do so relatively overtly. A UN arms embargo has been in force for the selling of weapons to Libyan factions since 2011, and the recent conference in Berlin has tried to further uphold such activities, without much success to date. 

Jordan, UAE, Turkey, Chad and Sudan are also named in a UN report as breaking the embargo. Of these only Turkey is now supporting the GNC/GNA side, consistent with Erdogan’s Islamist leaning administration. There are many who might wonder at the strange eagerness of Modern Turkey to become embroiled in Libya – but this is a failure to realise the deep affinity and pride modern Turkey has for its long history of Ottoman rule and culture. Turkey in Ottoman empire days once ruled Libya, from the mid 1400’s until 1911, when Turkey lost control of Tripolitania to Italy during the Italo-Turkish war of 1911-1912. That is to say Turkey was colonial ruler of Libya for nearly half a millennium. It’s involvement in that context is perhaps less puzzling.

With pro-revolutionary zeal, and no doubt with one eye cocked towards Turkey’s colonial history in Libya, Gadhafi was a supporter of Kurdish independence. Hence a natural antipathy to the LNA – whose armed forces are in part vestigial from the Gadhafi regime - remains in Turkey, and reciprocating the feeling, Hatfar has been vocal in his denunciation of Turkey.  

Sudan – itself sourcing over a third of the most recent refugee influxes into Libya, has been going through its own ructions. Initially hostile to the Hatfar regime, and in 2017 recognising the GNA administration, changes in Sudan’s own government have led to a far more pro-LNA position and it is one of the countries alleged to be supplying the LNA with direct military support, as mentioned in a recent UN report pertaining to violations of the arms embargo. Sudan and Chad both appear to be supplying mercenaries – to LNA, and a large part of the incentive seems to be financial.

Russia and western powers have signed up to the arms embargo, but old loyalties and protection of interests still rule. Field Marshal Hatfar served in the Libyan Army under Colonel Gadhafi and was also involved in the coup which brought him to power in 1969. As a socialist government, Gadhafi’s regime had close ties with Russia, and so Russia’s instinctive allegiance is on the LNA, less overtly Islamist side, and any strategy to reinforce influence in a Central Mediterranean OPEC nation would no doubt be attractive.  Russia’s own tragic history (something which Putin was quick to describe with some eloquence at the recent Auschwitz liberation commemoration in Jerusalem) means it is always seeking leverage buffers wherever they can be found.

The presence of Russian mercenaries fighting on the LNA side is alleged, though of course any direct linkage to the Russian administration through the murky labyrinths of diverse Russian interests would always be nigh impossible to prove, if it were present. The daily strengthening relationship between Russia and Turkey is being tested as the two sides back different players, but for Moscow and Ankara, any issues are probably not worth jeopardising the growing accords they have with each other - we shall see.

The western world’s involvement is no less messy however. France with its strong commercial involvement in East Libyan Oil, and its commitment to resisting Islamist insurgencies in a number of francophone African nations including Niger and Chad, is also instinctively inclined in many respects towards the Hatfar/LNA Camp. France actively engages with the Field Marshal – now in his seventies - and he visited a Paris Hospital for medical treatment in 2018. Three undercover French soldiers were killed in a helicopter accident in Libya in 2016 indicating ongoing covert operations at that time. Field Marshal Hatfar is not shy of publicising the French make-up of much of his arsenal. France is unlikely to be breaking the embargo, but it is worth noting that it is a trusted military supplier to the UAE, including a defence co-operation agreement. 

Uncle Sam’s see-saw

The US has had a mixed-signal relationship with Libya, see-sawing it seems with increasing frequency. To be fair, the relationship status has always been complicated. Initially fiercely hostile to the Gadhafi regime, including bombing of Tripoli by the Reagan administration, a thaw in relations took place between 2003 and 2011 as Gadhafi agreed to dismantle his nuclear programme and rescinded support for several terrorist groups, as well as opening (mainly oil) investment opportunities. US support for the regime was however withdrawn during the brutal civil war hostilities in 2011 which eventually removed the regime. 

Following an attack by gunmen and the death of four US citizens in Benghazi on its offices there, the US appetite for involvement in Libya has decreased. Strategic assistance including military support for the GNA in Tripoli is mainly directed at US ambitions to circumvent any growth of ISIL, at alleged bases in the Libyan desert. President Trump in his inimical form has at times signalled support for support for Field Marshall Hatfar then some months later seemingly reversed the position. 

Field Marshal Hatfar is himself a dual US-Libyan citizen, the result of a two decade long stay in Virginia. This was an exile stemming from involvements in the Libya-Chad war during which he was taken prisoner, and for alleged coup plans to overthrow Gadhafi, for which he was sentenced to death in absentia in 1993 by the regime.  Little wonder then that upon return to Libya he played a leading role in overthrow of Gadhafi forces in 2011. 

Undeniably, it is a web of intrigue that anyone could be forgiven for underestimating the complexity of. The US finds itself in the position of many western countries, who instinctively align themselves with relatively more secular anti-extremism positions such as those also held by the LNA. At the same time, the internationally supported and UN backed government is the GNA based in Tripoli, but practically speaking Tripoli is controlled by more strongly Islamist leaning GNC militias who only partly support the GNA. 

Countries with admistrations fearful of Islamic extremism find it difficult to assist the GNA without also strengthening the GNC. To be real, every party involved in Libya is fundamentally Islamist. 97% of the country is Muslim, almost all Sunni, making it one of the most religiously homogenous countries in the world. Where the different parties disagree is the extent to which Islamic ethics are formally enrolled in the constitution and administrative practices. That of course is for Libyans to decide. 

Amongst all this the civilian casualties and drone-led bombing raids on Tripoli incurred at the hands of the LNA are increasingly a difficulty to all those supporting Field Marshall Hatfar’s LNA. International criticism has been fulsome.  Any lure of a quick victory for anyone seems to be long gone as both sides and their supporters fortify, involving external players and their military hardware ever more overtly. Meanwhile the House of Representatives executive protected by the LNA now resides in Bayda, Eastern Libya, led by Prime Minister Abdullah al Thani, while Prime Minister Fayez al-Serraj's government presides over the UN sanctioned GNA government in Tripoli.  He is trained as an architect, and while born in Tripoli, his own family roots are Turkish in origin. His father was a minister in the Libyan Monarchy that ruled Libya between independence in 1951 and Gadhafi’s coup d’etat in 1969.

It is all rather Shakespearian.

Of its other African neighbours, the story is no less delicate.  Physically smaller but more populous Tunisia has taken an admirable position for encouraging reconciliation between the two factions, but the Islamist tendencies of its own Government, encouragingly democratic by North African Standards, have been more naturally aligned with the GNA and GNC ruling in Tripoli. The decision not to invite it to the recent Berlin conference was very puzzling, and when this was at last minute reversed, Tunisia understandably still took offence and declined to attend. 

Algeria was quite supportive of the Gadhafi regime in its last stages, probably in fear of a refugee situation and keen for regional stability. It was criticised for being so, but more recently has been relatively muted and has an official stance of encouraging mediation and UN efforts. It is probably rather more preoccupied with its own problems at home, and the ISIL and similar group activities which permeate the adjoining remote regions of both countries.

The lack of any united front from Europe

In April of this year the UK tabled a resolution to the 15 Member UN security council aimed directly at stopping the LNA/Hatfar assault on Tripoli with a ceasefire. Allegedly Russia objected to specific mention of the LNA in the resolution, while the US insisted on such mention, so no formal agreement was reached. Instead, an informal call to end fighting was made. Of other EU big-hitters Germany has been trying hard to maintain a position as neutral, and is trying to get both parties to talk to each other. 

Berlin has proposed talks, and Hatfar had previously insisted on the departure of all militias from Tripoli as a pre-requisite. The GNA, understanding that these Tripoli-embedded GNC militias are the only thing stopping LNA walking into downtown Tripoli and taking full control at will, did not and likely will not agree to that premise. Nevertheless, under increasing pressure internationally (not least from their various military backers – who for all their interest, have not signed up for an endless blank cheque), their parties met. While a ceasefire was on paper agreed in Berlin, it had little tangible effect on the ground (so far). Nevertheless, an encouraging precedent for the GNA and LNA meeting has been set. Strangely though it was the other international players - mainly Russia and Turkey - who seemed to dominate events.

Of all the European countries, Italy and Malta are the two most firmly on the front line of the Libyan Crisis. Italy was the colonial ruler of Libya from 1911 until 1947. Following the second world war, Britain and France jointly administered Libya until independence in 1951. Italy remains the most important trading partner for Libya, and ENI, the Italian oil company, has strong commercial interests there. Italy is one of the strongest supporters of the GNA administration based in Tripoli, and many of the ENI commercial interests in Libya are in the western areas still under its control. Italy has long been a critic of NATO interventions in Libya saying – perhaps correctly, that they have exacerbated the instability of the country. Support for a Tripoli based government is its instinctive position. 

Malta - as a very small country with heavy mutual investments ongoing between the two countries, tries as best as it can to tread a middle road appeasing both sides, although along with most of the international community it did not recognise the Libyan Supreme Court’s revocation of the House of Representatives - which implies continued default support for it, as upheld by the LNA. However, Malta hosts embassies from both sides. For its part, Libyan investments in Malta are large, such that much like the oil resources, neither Libyan side wishes to upset the Maltese apple-cart too much.

Centuries of efforts for control of the Central Med

Consequently, we can now start to perceive the truly supra-regional scope of the Libyan conflict. It is about way more than just Libya (Fig 6 & 7). One can criticise this, but it is realpolitik and will not go away. Nation states, as long as they have been in existence, have always worked to influence events beyond their borders so as to increase their own security, and this chess game continues at pace in Libya. It is driven by cneturies of wounds incurred on all sides and is not going away in a hurry.

Firmly on the western-Libya Tripoli-based GNA (&GNC protected) side we have Italy, UK, Turkey, & Qatar. Firmly on the eastern-Libya Tobruk/Bayda LNA House of Representatives side are Russia, Egypt, UAE, Saudi, France, Greece, Cyprus, Sudan. Treading a tightrope between them for totally different reasons are Germany and Malta.   Then on the other side we have the US ostensibly supporting the GNA in Tripoli but variously running hot and cold taps on relationships with the LNA, and not wanting to cuddle the Islamist GNC too closely. Two other key players in the region, Israel and Iran fall into an expected line – with Israel supporting LNA and Field Marshall Hatfar, and Iran supporting the GNA/GNC based in Tripoli.

Moving on…urgently

What an introduction. I say introduction, because thus far has just been scene setting for the most critical point of this article, and that is the central government vacuum in Libya which has become an attraction for refugees wanting to transit to Europe. 

It is very easy to criticise, so again, what I mostly want to do here is just let the facts speak for themselves.

It isn’t meant to be a criticism directed at any particular party involved. There may well be parties more deserving of criticism than others, but I have no desire to embark down that path and leave it those with more expertise than I possess. This is a complex situation involving a long-brutalised nation which finds itself in an administrative void – a void that is bringing a large number of vulnerable and distressed Africans and Asians into the midst of the brutality. If there is a criticism I level it is one where we all have to up our game in this –we have all grown far too used to the status quo. That solutions are difficult is no excuse to stop searching.

Concerned for the people of concern?

Goodness knows how many people are truly involved in this ongoing crisis, but as of January 2020 the UNHCR (the UN refugee agency) recognises about 837 000 “people of concern” in Libya, just over 355 000 “internally displaced” and just over 47 000 “registered refugees and asylum seekers”. These are distributed through towns and refugee camps in Libya (Fig 4) and many of them have particular needs and traumas (Fig 5a). A depressingly large number are children (Fig 5c).

In 2019 the 47000 registered refugees and asylum seekers within Libya included 38% Syrian, 28% Sudanese, 12% Eritrean, 10% Palestinian, 5% Somalian, 2.5% Iraqi, 2.3% Ethiopian, 1.3% South Sudanese. Yemen, Liberia, Chad, and Afghanistan also figure (See Fig 6). About 62% were male, and 37% female, and 1% unidentified (Fig 5c). A quarter were aged 17 or younger (Fig 5c).

For the year 2019, around 9225 refugees had been rescued/intercepted by the Libyan Coast Guard and disembarked in Libya (Fig 4, Fig 7). This included 120 bodies recovered (1.3% of the total) and another 102 who are missing (1.1%). Of these most disembark at Tripoli (~3800) or Alkhums (~3560) (Fig 4) with the remainder mostly at Azzawya, Tajoura, Zwara, Misrata, or Sabratha. The refugees intercepted at sea by the Libyan Coast Guard in 2019 were predominantly nationals of Sudan (about 37%), while Mali, Cote d’Ivoire, Somalia, and Bangladesh, each provided between 5 and 8% of the total, and Nigeria, Eritrea, South Sudan, Guinea and Ghana, each provided between 2 and 3.5% of the total. Of those intercepted, about 80% were male, 12% women, and 8% children. Arrivals in Italy during 2019 were just under 11500, with just under 750 deaths registered – a death rate of 6%.

Other countries along the transit routes and in similar regions contribute smaller numbers. June and July are the peak months for transit across the Mediterranean, but journeys across Africa to get to Libya are occurring throughout the year, and access Libya from all sides of its vast, porous and remote borders. Strangely there is quite a big difference between the nationalities of those registered in Libya, and those intercepted in the Mediterranean (Fig 6&7). For whatever reason, either gangs in some countries are particularly well organised at arranging transits, or the journeys of some nationalities are being far less intercepted by the Libyan Coast Guard. Either that or the journeys of others have Libya as an intended final destination, but the only significant job opportunities existing are mercenary in nature. 

In the period 2016-2019 The IOM records just under 450 000 internally displaced people who were returned, and 636 000 migrants. 

Too little attention on too much detention

To the knowledge of the UN, 4475 people are being held in 33 active detention centres in Libya (Fig 4). The UN has made calls for an end to the detentions and the release of refugees and migrants into the community.  However, this is hardly a country enjoying a wellbeing and restitution episode, and amidst civil war conflict its ability to look after itself is compromised, let alone a vast number of uninvited guests. Expectations that it can do so, even with the best will in the world (which is far from universal) would seem delusional.  The situation is complicated by the fact that some men entering Libya from other countries may have done so under financial incentives as paid mercenaries. Distinguishing these men from migrants and refugees is not always trivial, and understandably there would be a reluctance to re-release those who have done so. Again, as with so much in Libya right now, the boundaries ar fuzzy and some of those entering Libya as refugees may have also been forced to fight on one side on capture.

The UN is itself co-ordinating a Gathering and Departure Facility for the remigration of refugees and asylum seekers, and this currently holds about 1150 people. To mid December in 2019, 1365 people had left for other countries from this facility, including Niger, Italy, Romania and Rwanda. Not to belittle the issues every country has with resettling refugees, but this is not a huge globally coordinated response. Since November 2017 to December 2019, the total is 5255, a tiny fraction of the total. The response from EU countries other than Italy and Malta - for whatever reason - is underwhelming.

The UK granted 683 applications for humanitarian assistance to Libyan nationals in the year ending June 2019, 60% of the UK total granted in this category. This “humanitarian assistance” category is not full asylum. It provides some of the benefits of fully fledged asylum, including 5 years of residence, access to health, work and benefits, and an option to apply for permanent residence at the end of five years if situations in home countries do not change. These however are people that have somehow made it into the UK already of their own means – they have not arrived from detention camps on UK invitation to resettle. For what its worth, “humanitarian assistance” also withholds other benefits accessible to asylum seekers such as removing higher education fees, immunity from prosecution for illegal entry, rights pertaining to other family members, and UK passports.

Why oh why?

So, really what is going on here with the refugees? It would at first glance defy logic to want to travel into such a situation. The attraction to people who are fleeing or attempting to enter Europe is the relative scarcity of central government presence along much of the vast and largely remote Libyan coastline. In many cases the total desperation of their situation in other conflicts is also a factor. In other cases, it is desperation for an improved quality of life – reflected in the predominance of younger men in the exodus.

The Libyan Coast Guard

At present, the rescues off Libya are largely co-ordinated by the Libyan Coast Guard, and the European Union is paying it to do so. This situation arose out of earlier European efforts known as “Mare Nostrum”. Under this operation, Italy alone saved more than 100 000 people between 2013 and 2014. In any further discussion of the issue this is an important context. Italy has been strained to its limits for a long time, and any criticism of its actions by other countries can be fairly retorted with the reply – “so what are YOU doing?”. 

Mare Nostrum efforts did not continue at this original level and a new border security operation labelled “Operation Triton” resulted in far less rescues. At the peak of the crisis in 2016, fatalities and missing persons reached over 5100. This situation helped precipitate an abrupt decision from the EU to outsource patrols of the Central Mediterranean to the Libyan Coast Guard, as partner. Money, boats and some training were provided by the EU for the cause, with the primary intention of reducing arrivals in Europe. EU sources suggest just over €90 million have been spent on the Libyan Coast Guard for equipment and training.

Why such a decision was taken so rashly is difficult to ascertain, but it is worth noting a general trend in many EU countries at that time towards right-wing nationalist anti-migration administrations.

Success, if you choose which bits to ignore

The problem we now face, is that this programme is ostensibly successful in its main objective. Arrivals in Italy from Libya decreased from 144 000 in 2017 to 46 000 in 2018.  Such a decrease is difficult for any Italian or other EU politician to revoke. Yet at the same time death rates on attempted crossings, according to the IOM, are increasing – up to 1 in 35 (~3%) for 2018 compared to 1 in 50 (2%) for 2017. When was the last time you hopped in a boat knowing the journey had a 3% chance of death?

Though one cannot but empathise for all involved in this crisis, the Libyan Coast Guard is the organisation most under the spotlight at present. Bear in mind this is itself an arm of the Libyan Navy, an organisation involved in a civil war. Accusations levelled at the Libyan Coast Guard have included all manner of human rights violations, and those elements of the militias involved in human trafficking and smuggling see the Libyan Coast Guard as ripe for infiltration. This is a brutalised nation and unsurprisingly opportunism rules. 

How then does the EU see fit to finance these operations and what checks are in place? Good question. It’s difficult to avoid the impression that the EU has stopped asking too many questions as long as the European arrivals are reduced. Very few effective checks are in place. 

As well as EU funding, Italy also contributes equipment and money directly to the Libyan Coast Guard and co-ordinates with them, to return vessels and occupants to Libya. This included €5 million in July 2018. Some Italian Navy ships are based in Tripoli to help co-ordinate this activity within the Libyan search and rescue zone that was approved in June 2018 by the International Maritime Organisation (Fig 8). Creation of this zone allows Italy and others to legally refer a far larger proportion of search and rescue efforts to the Libyan Coast Guard. The demands of civil war operations however, mean Libyan vessels are not always prioritised to search and rescue operations and can be reallocated to combat operations at short notice for weeks at a time. 

Just not fair or reasonable to expect the Coast Guard to achieve this

About 400 Libyan Coast Guard personnel have been trained under EU auspices, covering subjects such as search and rescue, first aid, human rights, maritime law, navigation, asylum procedures and fighting crime including illegal trafficking. Participants are allegedly vetted by the EU, the Libyan armed forces, and Interpol. However large questions remain over the Coast Guard’s ability to conduct the scale of search and rescue operations required, and serious efforts to ensure widespread application of the training provided are largely absent.

 An EU operation called Operation Sophia began in 2015 specifically to combat smuggling and to date has also saved 45 000 people at sea, but this operation now no longer involves naval ships following disagreements amongst member states about how to distribute those rescued.

Since 2017 then, reliance has been almost total on the Libyan Coast Guard. Monitoring of its operations is largely remote. No EU personnel are embedded on the vessels and there is no real way to ensure violations of the training standards are occurring. Incidents in which both charity vessels and the Libyan Coast Guard have been in attendance have amply illustrated this. This includes a November 6, 2017 incident in which an German NGO charity rescue vessel Sea Watch-3 (https://sea-watch.org/en/project/sea-watch-3) was - it alleges - hindered from rescuing lives from the water by the Libyan Coast Guard, with at least four resulting fatalities.  A number of NGO vessels operate in the Mediterranean (Fig 8) to engage in rescue and to monitor human rights, but they constantly run the gauntlet of legal action from EU governments, who see their operations as illegal despite the lives being saved, and many are out of action pending legal proceedings. 

On Europe’s side, the difficult tightrope is to discourage such journeys being made in the first place without totally abandoning those who do so out of desperation. If rescue is assured, the incentive to make such journeys while any border security void in Libya persists, is stronger. 

Sea Watch-3 recorded some of those rescued undergoing assault at the hands of the Coast Guard crew, leading many to jump back into the sea to escape. Throughout the same incident, for whatever reason, a nearby French Frigate reportedly did not intervene.  We cannot know why, but if it had, any people rescued would have necessarily been returned to EU shores.

Sanctions imposed by the UN security council for reasons of human trafficking have included Libyan Coast Guard and militia commanders operating in unison. In terms of treatment of refugees however, what happens on Libyan Coast Guard vessels is just the tip of the iceberg, and virtually every kind of abuse has been documented for those who are returned to detention centres in Libya. These are largely controlled by militias and the UN has only limited access, access that is decreasing as the situation in Tripoli worsens and organisations remove staff for safety reasons. Beatings, extortion, torture, and slavery are amongst the accusations.  Spare a minute to trawl the images of these camps available on the web and I challenge you not to be emotionally gutted.

There is no suggestion that every Libyan Coast Guard operation or detention camp operation is like this, and no doubt intentions for many involved are sincere – but clearly vulnerability to abuse and infiltration exists. Libya is itself desperately seeking solutions to the problem. For its part the Libyan Coast Guard stresses the magnitude of the crisis and how little support it receives from Europe. It feels as much a victim of the situation. European countries maintain that to enter Libyan territorial waters (Fig 8) would be regarded as hostile. Given the scale of the problem this seems a subject that requires more discussion on both sides, that ventures beyond any glib “too hard” response.

In a nutshell, floating helplessly on the Central Med.   

The crux of the situation is that refugees involved in cross Mediterranean transit to Europe face either drowning in the attempt, or return to detention centres in Libya. The stories of those who would rather jump into the Med. during Coast Guard interceptions and risk drowning rather than face return to the Libyan detention camps, are increasing. 

Earlier in the year Tajoura detention centre – home to 600 people on the outskirts of Tripoli - was involved in an airstrike in which at least 53 refugees and staff were killed and 130 injured. Accusations from the GNA have attempted to implicate the LNA and the use of UAE jets, but the truth remains - as ever in any civil war - obscure.

Europe has observed that entry numbers to its own shores have gone down, and currently tends to absolve itself of any responsibility for those who are returned to Libya, despite an abundance of evidence of maltreatment and abuse, sometimes of the most terrible kinds. Excuses for not being more involved are too easy to find, and those countries without a maritime border to Libya are not falling over themselves to help when those who do have one - despite urgent calls for assistance.   It is easy to point the finger at Italy as the country most keen to allocate responsibility to the Libyan Coast Guard, but having faced huge influxes of numbers in the past - with other European countries offering very limited help, it would be justified to feel equally abandoned in this situation. 

Similarly, the Libyan Coast Guard can be made an easy scape-goat, but the EU can hardly be said to be helping by pouring vast amounts of money into a country brutalised by ongoing conflict between warring factions, with little real on-the-ground or water monitoring of how it is being spent or enacted.

Meanwhile, as the various factions of Libya continue their conflicts fuelled by weapons from regional powers all trying to protect their own interests, some of Africa and Asia’s most fragile people are funnelled by desperation into either the detention camps or the bottom of the sea. These are camps that without any stretch of the imagination can be fairly described as awful, to the extent that many have died rather than face returning to them. We cannot begin to understand what horror drove them to such a decision.

Now what?

What to do? That is not easy. The one thing we do know however is what we can’t do. That is ignore the situation.  

What seems fair enough to acknowledge is that so much of Libya is secured by the LNA, and there are so many heavy hitters behind it, that any solution which does not involve the LNA is pretty much doomed. The matter of Libya’s own Supreme Court ruling has also proven difficult to ignore. Similarly, the GNA and by implication the GNC in the Tripoli area just have too many heavily armed, well resourced, and genuinely committed supporters, plus the official support of the UN and international community, not to mention recent arms and personnel influxes from Turkey, for the military fall of Tripoli to the LNA to be allowed. 

Rightly or wrongly, that would seem to be the reality looking from outside, but the GNA/GNC and LNA have to come to this conclusion themselves. After years of civil war they seem to be operating in a warrior tradition that sees final victory just around the corner if only one last push can be made. A ceasefire might be assisted if their own supporters recognised the unreality of such a view (given the entrenchment of large well financed regional powers on both sides ready to provide weapons almost indefinitely) and resolved to communicate it, but there are few guarantees of anything in this chaos. 

Whatever solution emerges, however difficult or unlikely it seems at present, it would appear to involve dialogue between the LNA and the GNA and GNC, and assurances protecting the most vital core interests of all of them. Understanding what those are is critical to any forward path. 

As for the refugees, parties all around Europe and the Middle East and North Africa, have to recognise they can’t absolve themselves and dump all responsibility on Italy and the Libyan Coast Guard and the beleaguered state of Libya itself.  The best thing that can happen of course is a return to stable central government and economic prosperity in Libya so that borders are enforced as normal. Then the attraction of an anarchic governmental void bordering the Central Mediterranean is removed.  

Accommodating the refugees that exist already is no easy problem, but surely has to involve a global effort, and not relegation to those few countries which find themselves suffering most, Libya, Malta, and Italy in particular, but also increasingly Tunisia. Without opening any floodgates, that may require governments to find courage to exert that most fundamental characteristic of humanity – compassion – above those of populism and fear. Longer term, it is about working to improve economies and security in the refugee/migrant-sourcing countries so that these journeys do not begin in the first place – and that can genuinely be a relationship of mutual benefit, not just hand-outs.  

As I said at the beginning of this article, I have no wish to apportion blame. It doesn’t really help anyone. Few conflicts arise without both sides being motivated by rational fears. Hopefully though, understanding the reasons why things are happening, can help. Then, even if we don’t agree with various perspectives, the situation can at least be persevered with, and not relegated to the “too hard, not our problem” bucket. 

As we enter the 2020’s, we cannot ignore this weeping sore without cost to our own humanity. The Libyan crisis is but one of many crises around the world, but I can’t help feeling it is one where great progress is possible, if the world puts its mind to it – or at the very least resolves not to ignore it. There are no trite off-the shelf pre-packaged formulaic answers, but that is no reason to cease searching for a way forward, and to assist Libyans in determining their own future, peacefully. Whatever the motivations for those interned after trying to transit Libya and the Mediterranean, abandonment is no solution. 2020 deserves to become the year when things change significantly for better in Libya. All those involved – refugees, civilians, and combatants, amidst everything, deserve not to be forgotten.

Stop Press – ongoing negotiations, ongoing conflict

At the time of writing, there are indications that the GNA and LNA are starting to enter discussions with each other, at the UN sponsored talks of the “5+5” military commission taking place in Geneva.  They involve the five permanent members of the UN security council (China, France, Russia, UK) plus UAE, Turkey, Egypt, Algeria, and the Republic of Congo.  Also, at the time of writing there is little indication that the situation on the ground has changed, and if anything, the factions are fortifying and reinforcing positions – perhaps to strengthen negotiating positions, perhaps to engage if they fail.

Links to some key documents used:

UNHCR Libya operational portal 30 Nov 2019: https://data2.unhcr.org/en/country/lby

UNHCR Libya update 24 Jan 2020: https://data2.unhcr.org/en/documents/download/73600

UNHCR Libya registration fact sheet Dec 2019: https://data2.unhcr.org/en/documents/download/73285

UNHCR Libya activities at disembarkation Dec 2019: https://data2.unhcr.org/en/documents/download/73284

UNHCR Malta Factsheet October 2019: https://www.unhcr.org/mt/wp-content/uploads/sites/54/2019/10/Malta-Factsheet_OCTOBER.pdf

UNHCR Who does what where Dec 2018: https://data2.unhcr.org/en/documents/download/67875

IOM Bi-weekly Update 16-31 Dec 2019: https://www.iom.int/sites/default/files/situation_reports/file/biweekly_update_16_to_31_december_2019_corrected.pdf

IOM Libya Migration crisis operational framework: https://www.iom.int/sites/default/files/our_work/DOE/MCOF/MCOF-Libya-2017-2019.pdf

19 January 2020 Berlin Conference Negotiations Conclusions: https://www.bundesregierung.de/resource/blob/992814/1713866/90dd3e8af248e6a3167e04c957547a97/2020-01-19-berlin-conference-on-libya-data.pdf?download=1