Rosine, Even and Simon were all patients of Médecins Sans Frontières teams on their journeys to Europe. Like many migrants and asylum seekers, they found themselves trapped for years in Libya. Despite the presence of international organizations and the existence of evacuation and resettlement processes, their chances of leaving the country legally were slim to none.
They have all finally managed to escape Libya. But at what price?
Chapter 1
Trapped in Libya
"I ended up where I didn't want to be."
Simon
Simon arrived in Europe in 2022. He first stayed in Italy before being sent to Germany to a reception center for asylum seekers.
In my head, I had the option of going into exile in Algeria. Except that things turned sour and I ended up where I didn't want to be. From where I was in Cameroon, people were talking about Libya, the slavery treatment and all. I was well informed.
Like Simon, Rosine was deceived by smugglers.
I ended up there. I was thinking about everything I saw on social networks and everything I heard. It was a shock!
Rosine is 27 years old. She received care from MSFin Libya and in Palermo, Italy. She left Cameroon because she felt threatened and prefers to remain anonymous.
My destination when I left Cameroon was Tunisia. At a certain point on the road, the smugglers know exactly what they're doing.
Liège Belgium
The journey’s not good. I don't wish it on anybody. I don’t wish the journey even on my worst enemy.
Even was only 11 when he fled Eritrea, one of the most closed countries in the world. He first passed through Sudan and then Egypt where he waited in vain to be taken in charge as a refugee by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees [UNHCR]. As a last resort, he tried to cross the Mediterranean Sea with the help of smugglers, who ended up selling him to Libyan traffickers.
Chapter 2
Kidnapped and tortured
"The only hope we have is to manage to pay the money".
Even
When I arrived in Libya, the first place I went, the first thing I did, was go to prison. So I went to prison. As soon as I arrived, I didn't even spend hours there, because the car came and parked at the prison gates, and it was the first time I'd seen weapons openly. I've seen heavy weapons, where we were forced to get out with hunting dogs and everything: get out, get out! We went down. That was my first day in Libya, the prison.
Most migrants in Libya have no legal status, and the country is not a signatory to the Geneva Convention on Refugees. Migrants therefore risk imprisonment at any moment, as well as kidnapping by traffickers.
Even was taken by force to Beni Walid, one of Libya's biggest human trafficking hubs, where torture and extortion are systematic. At the age of 13, he was imprisoned there for seven months.
Beni Walid is crazy. We go to a big hangar with a lot of people, all kidnapped. And it's crazy. They beat you every time. There's not enough food, not enough water. You don’t wash your body. The only chance you [have] is to finish your [ransom] payment. It's the only chance. You're always on the phone with your family. You tell them, "I'm dying: send me money. Send me money." You have to keep calling your family.
Even managed to escape, but soon afterwards he was arrested and locked up again, this time in a detention center controlled by the Libyan authorities.
It's even worse when you're in a detention center. In Beni Walid, at least, you get beaten, you get treated like an animal. But if you pay your [ransom] money, if you're lucky, you can make it to Europe. But in the detention centers, they don't want to send you out of the detention centers. So it’s more crazy. It's a place with no hope.
It was the police. They were dressed in uniforms. As I don’t have legal status, it's prison. And once the taximan left, some time later they took me to a shed where I found other girls who had also been taken there in this way. There were girls taken from the street, from taxis like me, and there were people taken from houses. There were also some we picked up on the water. So we were all mixed up like that.
Because she was pregnant, Rosine was finally released.
Since 2016, Médecins Sans Frontières teams have been offering care to migrants in Libya, mostly in detention centers, when authorized.
In 2019, MSF was allowed in Dhar el-Jebel detention center, also known as Zintan. By then, Even had been imprisoned there for eight months, along with one thousand other migrants.
It's a big hole in the middle of nowhere. You cannot run, you cannot escape. The treatment there is not good. We lost a lot of people, I think it’s about 23—23 people are dead because of no treatment of tuberculosis. Before MSF came, we didn't have any food, no good treatment, medication.
Yet most of the prisoners at Dhar el-Jebel were registered as asylum seekers by the UNHCR, which was supposed to offer them protection and possibly evacuate them to a safe country.
Chapter 3
No protection
"I couldn't trust the UNHCR".
Even
I spent almost a year [in Zintan], it’s crazy. The UNHCR came one time or two times. No [resettlement], no nothing. It’s the most difficult time. For me I just forget them, they come and do nothing. I lost hope because I stayed with UNHCR for more than one year. More than one year as an unaccompanied minor, no special treatment. [Locked] in detention centers just like the others.
In 2023, just over one thousand people were evacuated from Libya by the UNHCR, out of 57,000 who were registered as asylum seekers or refugees.
Desperate, some even choose to return home, regardless of the risks they face. The International Organization for Migration or IOM proposes "voluntary humanitarian returns" to the countries of origin. The voluntary nature of these returns has been questioned, but besides the limited UNHCR evacuations, this is the only other legal way for migrants to leave Libya.
I told my friends that I'd rather go back to my country, because I'd been in a prison where we were so badly treated after being arrested on the water. We were tortured, we didn't eat. When I go to the IOM in Tripoli, I tell them: “I want to go home”. I've taken a lot, a lot of abuse, I want to go back. I was in the process of registering when one of the center's superiors arrived and told me he couldn't have me repatriated. He said, either I call the authorities in my country, or I go to Tunisia, where the Cameroon embassy is.
Still, in 2023, 9,000 people left Libya through the IOM.
I know that if we are caught at the checkpoint, [UNHCR] does nothing. We tell [the guards] "This is the UNHCR papers", they tear them up and put you in jail. And UNHCR don’t take any responsibility to [take you out], whether you're registered or not. I couldn't trust UNHCR and sleep there waiting for them to [resettle] me. They don’t know still if I’m alive or dead, so I cannot trust them and sleep, so I will find an illegal boat to Europe. The only chance is to go again to the sea.
In most cases, that's the only choice we have in this country. When I agreed to that, [the smuggler] took us to a "campo" [camp where a smuggler gathers his passengers]. When we went there, it was maybe a one-week thing. We had to get started. But as time went on, we hung out in this "campo" for almost two months. The trip was scheduled every day, but with no further action.
Faced with UNHCR's inaction, migrants even demonstrated in front of the organization's offices in Tripoli, as they did in 2021.
Simon, Rosine, and Even all came to the same conclusion. Despite the danger, the only possible way out of Libya was by sea.
Chapter 4
The only way out
"My heart told me, we have to leave, run away, run away!”
Rosine
I couldn't reach the other side of the Mediterranean every time I tried and left Libya. I was always taken back to where I started, back to the prisons, because I'd been to enough prisons. As many times as I went in the water, as many prisons. So I made seven attempts, six failures. All negative. And the seventh, in August 2022, was the right one.
When we disembarked in Malta, they didn't welcome us in a good way. They took us to a detention center, called Hal-Far detention center. It's a detention center inside a military base. We stayed there, then [they] take the minors to Marsa closed center... We spent four months [there]. I was told I couldn't ask for asylum until I was 18.
Thanks to the intervention of MSF teams, Rosine was referred to the UNHCR as a vulnerable person. Just as she was about to take the sea, she received a call from the UNHCR announcing that she was to be evacuated by plane to Italy.
We spent two months in this "campo", there was no journey until I received the message from the UNHCR. That's when I decided to give up everything and seize the opportunity offered to me by Médecins Sans Frontières and the UNHCR. I didn't even believe it. I followed my heart, my heart told me, we have to leave, run away, run away! This call didn't come at random.
The boat Rosine was supposed to have boarded was intercepted by the Libyan coastguard and everyone on board was put in detention.
For me, the torture I suffered doesn't hurt any more than all the friends I've lost, because I say to myself, I've suffered, I've been tortured, but if the friends with whom we were tortured could live, one day we could say, that's the past. For me, it can't be in the past to lose someone with whom I've walked, with whom we've gone through the difficult stages, so I know I won't see them again. That's when I entered the Geo Barents, I cried for days because if memory serves me right, we did almost two weeks in the Geo Barents. I cried for days. I couldn't believe it.
I tell you, it’s very much not a safe journey. It took eight years. I left [when I was] 11, the good time to study, the good time to run, even the good time to party. I lost it in prison, in changing places, in changing detention centers, hoping for nothing from UNHCR. I cannot explain it. You can recover your money, you can recover everything, you cannot recover your life and your time. So [I don’t know what he says here, does he say “making asylum?]] in eight years, I've lost a lot of things.
Rosine, Even and Simon now live in Europe, where they have all been able to apply for asylum. Rosine and her baby were taken into care at an MSF center in Palermo, dedicated to victims of torture.
All three are still in contact with friends in Libya who, like them, are seeking to leave the country.
Since 2014, more than 20,000 people have died at sea trying to reach Europe from Libya.
Between 2017 and 2023, only 1,500 people have been evacuated or resettled annually by UNHCR in safe countries.
Since 2021, a humanitarian corridor has made it possible to evacuate almost 600 people, including around 50 MSF patients from Libya to Italy. A further 1,400 people are expected to be evacuated over the next three years, of whom almost 300 will be cared for by MSF in Italy.
Director: Nicolas Guyonnet
Scientific Advisor: Jérôme Tubiana
Interview: Jérôme Tubiana and Nicolas Guyonnet
Editing: Nathanaël Carton and Benoit Finck
Voice-over: Francesco Segoni
Mixing and Sound Effects: Quentin Romanet @Martel Studio
Animation: Sophiana Debris-Oliva
Photography: Aurélie Baumel, Jérôme Tubiana, Guillaume Binet/MYOP
Music: Audio Network
Special thanks to
the MSF teams in Palermo and Rome, Jess Brown.