Around 3,000 migrants and refugees spent the last couple of months camped out on the streets of Libya’s capital, Tripoli. They staged an open-ended protest outside the offices of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to denounce the inhumane conditions they face in Libya, and claim protection and safety.
The sit-in kicked off at the beginning of October after the Libyan authorities conducted a brutal crackdown on migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees in the western neighbourhood of Gargaresh, near Tripoli.
Security forces arrested more than 5,000 people, including many recognised as refugees by the UNHCR, in what the Libyan administration described as a large-scale security campaign against illegal migration and drug trafficking.
Unarmed migrants were harassed in their homes, beaten, and shot during the operation. They were then rounded up over several days and sent to detention centres in Tripoli and surrounding towns.
Among the demonstrators are many of those who survived the October raids. Others are survivors of violent pushbacks to Libya while attempting to cross the Mediterranean, and those who suffered torture, arbitrary detention, persecution, and extortion before fleeing detention centres.
Such a demonstration is unprecedented. After seeing no change in spite of all advocacy efforts by human rights activists and international humanitarian organizations, the gathered migrants— who are of different nationalities from Sub-Saharan Africa, mainly Eritreans, Somalis, Ethiopians, and Sudanese— formed a self-organised assembly.
Sleeping in a makeshift encampment, the protesters are in a poor, degrading state. In many cases, these are people with bodies scared with injuries endured under torture from traffickers. They are affected by severe malnutrition with no proper food. Although they raise money among themselves, it is not sufficient.
Some also have tuberculosis and other diseases that spread in the overcrowded, unsanitary detention camps they were held in. There are no public toilets available to them. Many of the refugees are in desperate need of medical aid. Pregnant women and girls have been giving birth at the encampment since public hospitals almost systematically deny migrants access to healthcare.
The protesters are demanding an end to the violence and immediate evacuation to safe countries. They are also calling on European Union (EU) member states who are directing funds to Libya to make sure the forcible deportation to Libyan migrant detention facilities stops and to press for the closure of these facilities and the release of detainees.
By camping in front of a community centre run by UNHCR, the migrants are hoping to be protected from further raids as they fear ending up in detention. Several of them have papers from the UN agency proving they have refugee status.