The Libyan town of Zuwara is hardly known to the outside world but could easily become an attractive tourist destination, with its sprawling coastline of white sandy beaches.

Its fortunes took a turn for the better in the dying days of the Gaddafi regime. Before that, it was an open secret that the dictator was not too fond of the place or its people: the Amazigh (Berbers). As a result, the area suffered from neglect for decades.

Lately, the city has seen a lot of international press attention but none of it is welcome. With growing numbers of migrants crossing over to Europe, the race is on to understand the people-smuggling networks that operate from Libya. Many fingers are pointing at Zuwara.

Councillor Baseem Dahan.

During a week-long visit to Libya, in which we travelled through the western part of the country, we met with councillor Baseem Dahan, a member of the city’s first municipal government.

He greets us with typical Libyan hospitality but also caution. He and his staff are angry at a recent article in The Guardian newspaper which featured an extensive interview with a people-smuggler, who happened to be from Zuwara and happened to be an Amazigh.

“That was no smuggler. Smugglers do not talk to the press, he was just someone trying to make some money,” Mr Dahan protests.

His frustration is that the interview continued to reinforce the idea that Zuwara and its people are running an institutionalised criminal network responsible for all migrants leaving Libya.

The boats do not just leave from Zuwara, he argued, but also from neighbouring Sabratha and Zawiya as well as further afield, east of Tripoli, from places like Garabulli and Al Khoms.

All this is known and even mapped out in official data by the EU border patrol agency Frontex.

“People smugglers operate huge networks over many countries. Why are the Amazigh being labelled? We are the only people who have protested against this activity. We don’t want it, and we don’t like it. It’s a form of racism,” Mr Dahan points out.

It was an open secret that Saadi Gaddafi, the flamboyant son of the former Libyan dictator, protected a network of well-placed smugglers when the colonel ran the show, according to locals who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Back then the regime exercised control over the number of migrants that would leave Libyan shores.

“It used to happen because of two reasons: the first is that security was tighter; they had better control over the territory, and the secret service was more effective at the time.

Their fleet includes a total of one patrol boat that tends to overheat

“But there was also Saadi. He could tell his friends who ran the business at the time in Zuwara to turn off the tap for a while. And they would,” the source said.

Gaddafi would use his control over the smuggling operations as a bargaining chip which culminated in him demanding €5 billion from the EU, in return for sparing Europe from “becoming black”.

“What that control meant in practice was that given his son’s interest in Zuwara, only smugglers who had this protection could operate. After the revolution, the market got liberalised, so to speak,” the source pointed out.

Since the 2011 revolution, smuggling proliferated as demand grew, with African migrants who had previously been living comfortably in the country now wanting to flee the instability that has come to represent this North African state.

“The reality is that the stars aligned, and if the Zuwara smugglers were once alone, there is now huge competition,” the source said.

Mr Dahan said the council had come up with a study which aims to deal with migration, with European help. It was commissioned right after the councillors took office in the county’s first municipal elections in 2014.

“We spoke to the Italian government about it, we spoke to the German Ambassador in Tunis, but nothing ever came of this.”

They asked for equipment, such as 4x4s, speed boats, and assistance to run the detention centres.

“All the equipment would be on loan, meaning it would remain EU property. We would simply employ it here in a joint programme.”

The needs were reflected when we visited the harbour and spoke to the chief responsible for the day. The coastguard there is responsible for a stretch of 100-kilometres coastline.

Their fleet includes a total of one patrol boat that tends to overheat, often leaving its crew stranded and in need of rescue themselves. They also have access to two fast boats, which are on loan from a nearby oil refinery.

They have never arrested a single smuggler but despite their needs, they still manage to intercept an average of 100 migrants a week.

Beyond the coastguard’s capability, the scene of hundreds of abandoned boats collected on the quay in Zuwara supports at least one of the points made by Mr Dahan. There may be collusion at some level with the smugglers.

But if it were so widespread, these boats would not be there.

Wooden boats are more valuable than rubber dinghies, and a vessel able to carry 500 people can fetch in excess of €50,000.

This is not a negligible sum of money, taking into account that a coastguard chief is likely to earn little more than 1,000 Libyan dinars (€500) per month.

If there were structured collusion, the boats would all have been sold by now.