The organization Doctors Without Borders (MSF) published a report on December 6 on the inhuman conditions of thousands of people detained in the collection centers of Tripoli in Libya.
Titled “You’re Going to Die Here: Abuse in Abu Salim and Ain Zara Detention Centres”, the report recounts how refugees, asylum seekers and migrants are attacked, sexually abused, beaten, killed and systematically deprived of the most basic human conditions, including access to food, water, sanitation and medical care.
“We continue to be horrified by what we saw in the Abu Salim and Ain Zara detention centers. People are completely dehumanized, exposed every day to cruel and degrading conditions and treatments,” said Federica Franco, MSF head of mission in Libya.
“In the Ain Zara center, detained men reported to our staff practices of forced labor, extortion and other human rights violations, including the deaths of at least five people due to violence or lack of access to treatment life-saving medicines,” recounts MSF in its report
“71 violent incidents have been documented – he continues – which occurred between January and July 2023, at the conclusion of our medical activities in Tripoli in August, with doctors treating injuries including broken bones, wounds on arms and legs, black eyes and problems with view.”
Hundreds of people – the report adds – are crammed into cells so overcrowded that they are forced to sleep in a sitting position, with sewage leaking from overflowing septic tanks and clogged toilets.
There is not enough food and there is too little water to drink or wash. This, combined with the terrible conditions, has contributed to the spread of infectious diseases such as acute watery diarrhea, scabies and chickenpox.
As for the Abu Salim detention center, where only women and children are detained, women described how they were subjected to body searches, intimate searches, beatings, sexual assaults and rapes.
Basic necessities such as clothes, mattresses, hygiene kits, blankets, diapers and infant formula were only distributed irregularly and were reportedly regularly confiscated. Many abuses were perpetrated by guards but also by men, often armed, brought from outside the detention center.
“Unfortunately,” says the head of MSF “we completely lost access to the Ain Zara detention center at the beginning of July and to the Abu Salim detention center in August 2023. Therefore we have come to the decision to put an end to the activities in Tripoli “.
“After seven years of medical and humanitarian assistance, we have deduced that the appalling situation we have witnessed depends largely on Europe’s deleterious migration policies, aimed at preventing people from leaving Libya at all costs and forcibly repatriating them in a country that is not safe for them.”
In conclusion, the report calls for an end to arbitrary detention in Libya and calls for all refugees, asylum seekers and migrants to be released from detention centers and receive meaningful protection, safe shelter and safe and legal routes out of Libya.
MSF, however, continues to work in Libya, currently in the regions of Misurata , Zuwara and Derna.