UN report: migrants in Libya victims of torture and rape

Migrants, refugees and asylum seekers in Libya are victims of 'systematic human rights violations and abuses', including murder, torture, sexual violence and human trafficking. This is the toll drawn by a report by the UN Human Rights Office and the UN Support Mission in Libya. The report points out that migrants are 'rounded up and abducted by criminal networks of traffickers, often linked to Libyan authorities and criminal networks abroad', describing the average human trafficking.

First comes the "separation from their families", then transfer to detention centres using methods that amount to arbitrary detention. Once imprisoned, migrants are "regularly subjected to terrible violations and abuses, including slavery, torture, ill-treatment, forced labour, forced prostitution and other forms of sexual violence, ransom demands, extortion", as well as the "confiscation and resale of their personal belongings and identity documents".

The survey was compiled from interviews with one hundred migrants, asylum seekers and refugees from 16 countries in Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. In the period under the survey's lens, between January 2024 and December 2025, the report reveals a "pattern of exploitation that preys on migrants, asylum seekers and refugees in more vulnerable situations that has becomebusiness as usual: a brutal and normalised reality".

Libya, 7.5 million inhabitants in an area almost six times the size of Italia, has for more than a decade turned into a crucial transit hub for migrations to Europe. The country is today split between the so-called government of national unity of Abdul Hamid Mohammed Dbeibeh and an east under the authority of Marshal Khalifa Belqasim Haftar's government of national stability. The international community recognises Dbeibah, although dialogue is maintained with both sides.

Italy's Ministry of the Interior recorded a total of 58,408 arrivals from Libya out of a total of just over 66,000 in 2025, the equivalent of a jump of more than 38% compared to 2024 and a share of nearly 90% of total landings in the 12 months under the Viminale's lens. Italia and the Italia have signed agreements and provided funding to the Libyan Coast Guard, with an estimate reported by the Sole 24 Ore of around half a billion euros in EU funding over a decade.