Romeo was rescued by MSF teams on board the Geo Barents on the 5th of August, 2021. Left from Cameroon, he has suffered an unending list of abuses in Libya and along his whole journey. Victim of smuggling from Cameroon to Libya, he is held as a captive by smugglers in a house in Zintan (Libya). He is extorted and tortured with hot iron, lashes and wooden sticks. Romeo is then arbitrarily detained in various detention centers in Libya and physically and mentally abused, again and again.  

During Romeo’s third attempt to escape from Libya across the Mediterranean Sea in late February 2021, the Libyan Coast Guard intercepted the boat he was traveling on along with more than 110 other people. According to Romeo, the Libyan Coast Guard then intentionally punctured the boat, causing men, women and children to fall into the water. At least 15 people were confirmed by the IOM to have drowned or to have gone missing during this tragic incident at sea. Those who survived were forcibly brought back to Tripoli by the Libyan Coast Guard and taken (again) to arbitrary detention.   

From our work providing medical care in Libyan detention centres, MSF witnessed how people are trapped and exposed to life-threatening risks such as ill-treatment, sexual violence, exploitation and even death.

“A TALE OF SURVIVAL”: this witness video aims at sensibilizing a broad audience on hundreds of persons subjected to unspeakable abuses and tortures, who did not have the chance to survive and to be rescued by a life-saving mission in the central Mediterranean. Since the beginning of 2021, a shocking amount of more than 26,000 men, women and children have been intercepted at sea and forcibly returned to Libya. Most of the returned persons also end up forcibly detained, in inhumane conditions. While more than 1,110 persons are dead or gone missing in the central Mediterranean so far in 2021.