By RENATA BRITO and FATMA KHALED

CAIRO (AP) — Reports of plans to deport migrants from the U.S. to Libya, a country with a documented history of serious human rights violations and abuse of migrants, have spotlighted the difficulties they face in the lawless North African nation.

Migrants in Libya are routinely arbitrarily detained and placed in squalid detention centers where they are subjected to extortion, abuse, rape and killings.

A U.N.-backed, independent fact-finding mission found evidence that crimes against humanity had been committed against migrants in Libya. Victims were subjected to enslavement, forced disappearance, torture and murder, among other crimes, the investigators found. Dead migrants have been found in mass graves across the country, while tens of thousands of others have drowned trying to escape Libya on smugglers’ boats.

“It’s hell on earth for migrants,” said Tarek Megerisi, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

“All they will have are different forms of abuse — if they are lucky enough, they will end up on a rickety boat in the Mediterranean,” added Megerisi, who is Libyan.

A fractured country ruled by militias

Libya plunged into chaos after a 2011 NATO-backed uprising toppled and killed longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi. The country split, with rival administrations in the east and west backed by a web of rogue militias.

“Their main business model is smuggling, and people smuggling is a major part of that,” Megerisi said.

Both the Tripoli-based government of Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah and its rival administration in eastern Libya controlled by military commander Khalifa Hifter have denied signing a deportation deal with the Trump administration.

Some 800,000 migrants seeking work or who have fled war in their home countries live in Libya, according to the International Organization for Migration. Each year, thousands attempt the dangerous Mediterranean crossing from the North African country to Europe.

Despite documented abuses in Libya, the European Union and Italy have for years funded, trained and equipped Libyan groups, including the coast guard, to stop migrants from reaching European shores.

Abuse and extortion in migrant detention centers

Migrants intercepted at sea or elsewhere in Libya are subject to arbitrary detention and extortion in centers run by armed groups that are either affiliated with state authorities or are autonomous, said Mehdi Ben Youssef, program lead at Lawyers for Justice in Libya. Those groups extort migrants for money in exchange for release — only for them to be captured again by another armed group, detained and tortured.

Ben Youssef said those who could be deported from the U.S. to Libya “would be highly exposed to cycles of crimes.”

In detention centers, migrants are tortured and kept in “horrific conditions,” lacking legal representation and proper access to water and health care, Ben Youssef said. Families outside Libya are blackmailed with cellphone videos of their relatives being tortured to pay varying sums for their release — payments that often offer no real guarantee of freedom.

A 2019 Associated Press investigation found that huge sums of EU funds meant to improve conditions for migrants ended up in the hands of militiamen, traffickers and coast guard members who exploited migrants in this cycle of catch and release.

Restrictions hinder groups in Libya from aiding migrants

Last month, Libya’s Internal Security Agency ordered 10 international aid organizations to suspend operations and close offices, accusing the groups of violating local laws by providing aid to African migrants, touting a “replacement” conspiracy theory and resulting in more targeting of Black migrants.

Those groups were already operating in a “highly restrictive environment” amid numerous crackdowns on civil society, Ben Youssef said.

Black migrants, and especially non-Arabs, face abuse such as forced labor and extortion more so than migrants of other nationalities, a humanitarian worker in Libya told The AP.

Attorneys said Wednesday that U.S. authorities informed some migrants of plans to deport them to Libya. That is troubling because it sends the message Libya is safe when it’s not, said the worker, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.

The worker’s team, which travels to reach vulnerable communities, helps with food distribution and provides psychosocial support, has been hindered since Libya ordered aid agencies to suspend operations.

Libya is “not a safe country for migrants,” and the order made the situation worse, said Claudia Lodesani, who heads Doctors Without Borders’ programs for Libya.

Libyan authorities have ordered private medical clinics collaborating with the group not to respond to migrants’ health needs.

“Our organization is very concerned about the consequences these orders will have on the health of migrant people in Libya,” Lodesani said.

More questions than answers

For now, there are still more questions than answers on whether deportations to Libya would actually take place. A U.S. judge said Wednesday that migrants can’t be deported without a chance to challenge such a move in court.

“What would happen to people once they land in Libya? … Would they be detained?” asked Camille Le Coz, who leads the European branch of the Migration Policy Institute think tank.

She noted that Libya has a very restrictive asylum procedure, recognizing refugees from only a handful of nationalities.

“This type of operation is expensive, it’s difficult to set up, and so, we can speculate that it might be to show that if you get to the U.S. you might be sent to this place that is extremely dangerous for migrant populations and that this may deter people from coming,” Le Coz said.

Brito reported from Barcelona, Spain.

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