"Three armed men captured and abused me, then I ended up in a detention center for three months, where traffickers continuously beat me, locked me up in cramped spaces with many others, who were tortured right in front of my eyes," said L., a Gambian.

"I was sold to Libyans that made me work for them, and when I tried to rebel and escape, they tortured me: they deprived me of food and water, beat and whipped me. They forced me to hold broken glass shards in my hands. But the worst thing they did was rape my wife in front of me, then forced her into prostitution. They tortured me every time I tried to resist. They told me they would kill her if I did not obey," said C., a Cameroonian.

In "Inhuman: Torture along the Mediterranean migration route, and the support of survivors in a fragile system," the medical humanitarian charity Doctors without Borders (MSF), documented, with statistics and accounts, the scale and reoccurrence of torture along the route, especially in Libya, which is taken by thousands of migrants hoping to reach Europe. 

'The growing and alarming incidence of brutal and oppressive practices'

Between January 2023 and February 2025, a total of 160 survivors of torture received support from MSF’s Service for Survivors of Torture team in Palermo, Sicily. Patients originated from 20 different countries, with the largest national groups being from Bangladesh, Gambia, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, and Nigeria. Most individuals assisted between 2023 and 2025 are men, with a median age of 25. In 82 percent of the cases, the torture took place in a transit country, with Libya showing the highest incidence (108 cases).

The forms of abuse are multiple and systematic, survivors told staff. Out of a total of 181 reported torture incidents, 17 types of violence were identified, including "beatings, whippings, burns, nail removal, electric shocks, and suffocation, among others," said MSF.

Another serious finding is that incidences of torture appear to be on the increase. Between 2023 and 2024, in cases of torture and serious violence in Algeria and Tunisia. 3 percent and 11 percent of patients treated by MSF in 2023 reported torture in Algeria and Tunisia respectively. In 2024, these figures rose to 15 percent and 24 percent, respectively. "This highlights the growing and alarming incidence of brutal and oppressive practices against people crossing these countries," warned MSF in the report.

Furthermore, in 131 of the incidents of torture reported, victims were able to identify the perpetrator: traffickers were responsible in 60.3 percent of the cases, and law enforcement was responsible in 29 percent of the cases, according to the report.

Read Also

'My wife was unrecognizable when I found her': An Ivorian describes the hell of Libyan prisons

'In Libya, I was sold to another man'

Women are particularly vulnerable. Of the 40 patients treated between 2023 and 2025, "80 percent reported experiencing one or more incidents of sexual and gender-based violence, some of which were classified as acts of torture."

"I was born and raised in Mali; after losing my mother, I was entrusted to a family that constantly beat and mistreated me. [ . . ] I paid a trafficker to leave Mali and managed to reach Libya. There, I was sold to another man: I was forced to live and work for him. He repeatedly raped me. He only let me go when I became pregnant and was no longer useful to him." said M, a Malian woman, in the report.

InfoMigrants has been documenting these abuses for several years. The editorial team has already collected testimonies from numerous migrants who have suffered violence or sexual abuse in Libya. In December 2021, Sarah*, a 19-year-old Ivorian woman, recounted how she was raped every night by prison guards in Libya until she gave birth to her son. Aminata*, another Ivorian woman, who also experienced prison in Libya, experienced the same abuse. "Every day, the guards come and get women from the cells and take them outside. They rape us in front of the other men. We hear them laughing and mocking us in Arabic, because they know that afterward, it will be their turn to beat us up," she told InfoMigrants in November 2021.

Read Also

'Libyans, armed and hooded, picked us up in the desert' – testimony of a Guinean in Tunisia

'The body remembers the pain. The mind locks it in'

Beyond the physical scars, torture leaves deep and lasting wounds on migrants. 67 percent of patients suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), often accompanied by anxiety, depression, nightmares, emotional numbness, and isolation. "When you've been tortured, the sense of time is shattered," said Grazia Armenia, an MSF psychologist in Palermo. "Before or after doesn’t exist, only the moment of violence, which never ends. The body remembers the pain. The mind locks it in."

The psychologist reports patients experiencing "constant flashbacks" and "reliving scenes of violence he endured".

"Even indistinct shouting can trigger memories of torture: he hears in his mind the screams of others being beaten in the adjacent cell. These intrusive thoughts can occur at any time of the day, making it impossible to focus on anything else," she said. 

One of the deadliest migration routes in the world

Over 800,000 migrants are currently in Libya, according to the latest figures from the International Organization for Migration. Sub-Saharan Africans are among the largest groups (42 percent), many of whom travel to the country and later attempt to reach Europe by crossing the Mediterranean Sea.

Since the beginning of 2025, 29,903 migrants have landed on Italian shores, including 5,328 unaccompanied minors, according to the latest figures from the Interior Ministry published on June 30.

This figure has risen compared to the same period in 2024, but represents half of the numbers documented in 2023, when sea arrivals exceeded 60,000 people in the first six months.