On 16 July, UN experts expressed serious concern over reports that more than 7,400 people, mostly from sub-Saharan Africa, are victims of a systematic pattern of arbitrary detention, collective expulsion and trafficking at the Tunisia-Libya border and in Libya, since at least June 2023, allegedly involving Tunisian security forces and Libyan state and non-state actors. ‘We are extremely concerned about the reports of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment while in detention in Tunisia and in Libya, and that such violence and neglect have resulted in deaths, enforced disappearances, and that mass graves may exist near military installations in Libya,’ the experts said.
In Libya, women and girls are trafficked for sexual exploitation and sexual slavery, and men are subjected to forced labour. Victims are transferred from detention facilities to private locations and repeatedly sold or transferred for exploitation, in a widespread and systematic pattern of trafficking in persons that treats human beings as commodities. These allegations point to grave violations of international human rights law, international criminal law, international humanitarian law, and international refugee law.