The violence and abuse faced by African migrants in Libya has escalated to levels not seen since the 2011 revolution, when black Africans were being targeted on suspicions that they were mercenaries recruited by former dictator Muammar Gaddafi.
Sources in Libya and among various humanitarian agencies that have collected the stories of migrants rescued in recent weeks, say the situation has become dire for thousands of asylum seekers stuck in the Libyan capital Tripoli.
The smuggling trade is being run by armed militias who have unprecedented control over facilities like detention centres and coastal areas as well as equipment and weapons.
Security sources say there is credible intelligence that militias operating from the capital are using chicken farms outside Tripoli as holding sites from where they can transfer hundreds of migrants at a time to coastal launching sites.
“Smugglers have clearly become bolder, they are no longer operating in the clandestine manner and this suggests to us that they have more power and more control over the process and over the territories they operate from,” a security source told The Sunday Times of Malta.
The Italian coastguard on Sunday got first-hand experience of how daring the smugglers are becoming when four machine gun-wielding men approached the rescuers with a boat and forced them to surrender a dinghy that had just been emptied of migrants.
Over the past year or so, Italian authorities had started towing back or sinking vessels used for the traverse to make sure they could not be used for another trip and this has increased pressure for smugglers who are facing severe shortages of boats.
Smugglers essentially ran out of the traditional wooden fishing boats that had become synonymous with the phenomenon. For a time, they turned to importing them from Tunisia but even those seem to be in short supply now.
“For the most part they now use rubber dinghies, which are probably put together in Libya. However, we believe they are finding it hard to source and import the raw materials so they are desperate to keep any vessels if they can. But Sunday’s incident is very telling of the changing attitude of smugglers,” the source said.
Migrants live in constant fear of violence, extortion and arbitrary detention
The smuggling gangs’ assertiveness with European authorities, however, is only one side of the coin. Asylum seekers in Libya, who were always at the mercy of smugglers, are facing a level of abuse and violence that is almost unprecedented. Officials from UNHCR, the Jesuit Refugee Service and other agencies have only this week started interviewing a group of 86 migrants who were rescued late in January who had been controversially quarantined as a precaution against Ebola.
A field officer said the testimonies he saw from this group of migrants was among the worst he had seen in years.
Similarly, JRS Malta Director Katrine Camilleri said it was clear that life had become even more precarious and dangerous for migrants living in Libya.
“They live in constant fear of abuse, violence, extortion and arbitrary detention,” she said, pointing out that many also described an escalating use of violence among smugglers who sometimes force migrants to board a vessel at gunpoint.
The stories of the group staying in Malta are corroborated by those of asylum seekers taken to Italian shores. Matteo De Bellis, who formed part of an Amnesty International research team that interviewed survivors in Rome and Lampedusa, said the migrants he spoke to gave a similar version of events.
Following its fact-finding mission, his team issued a scathing statement, arguing that the search and rescue mission put together by the EU under the so-called Triton operation was not sufficient and that hundreds of migrants had lost their lives as a consequence.
Europe has justified the end of Italy’s extended Mare Nostrum rescue operation in November on the basis that it was creating a pull factor; however UNHCR pointed out that January 2015 had seen an increase of 60 per cent in migrants over the same month last year.
“We appreciate the analysis of the situation made by the European Commission this week, and accept that it’s Europe’s responsibility we are concerned that the measures taken are not sufficient.
“Triton is not sufficient. We need European states to deploy assets in central Mediterranean, closer to Libyan shores. Nothing can justify European states burying their heads in the sand,” Mr De Bellis said.
Times Talk will discuss the risks of surging migration from Libya on Tuesday. TVM 6.45pm.