The UNHCR will soon open 'antennas' in the areas of Kufra, Gatrun and Sebha, stages on the migrant route from Niger and Sudan towards the coast at Tripoli, the main departure point for Europe.
The UN agency thus intends to tackle the emergency in Libya that involves hundreds of thousands of people: 41,319 asylum seekers and registered migrants, and 240,188 displaced persons. According to the UNHCR report, "Mixed Migration Trends in Libya: Changing Dynamics and Protection Challenges", the majority of the migrants crossing Libya to set off from Tripoli do so for economic reasons. Often, the migrants go on journeys organized by smugglers, with costs that can reach 5,000 dollars per person. In other cases, they organize journeys in stages on their own, which are cheaper but very long.
Flow increasing from east Africa
Up till 2016, Libya was the route towards Europe most traveled by Syrians. Now those fleeing Damascus prevalently use the eastern Mediterranean route. Flows from eastern Africa are down, particularly from Eritrea, Somalia, Ethiopia, and Sudan. Arrivals from west Africa, on the other hand, are up. There are also those who, from the borders of Niger, go around Libya and cross Algeria, opening a new route.
Forced labor, improvised prisons
While the work of the Libyan Coast Guard continues, pushing out up to 24 miles from the coast and saving 10,000 migrants so far, the UNHCR cannot always intervene on the ground. In Libya, there are 34 detention centres run by the al-Sarraj government, the UN reports. 27 of these are accessible to the agency. But hundreds of "non-official" centres are off limits to the international community, including the UNHCR. These are fully fledged forced labor camps and improvised prisons run by armed militia, who dominate migrant trafficking and the smuggling industry.