On 3 February, the UN Panel of Experts Report dated 13 December 2024 and covering the period from 18 July 2023 to 25 October 2024 was released. The report covered many elements of interest, notably around the ‘unprecedented’ levels of influence armed groups in Libya have achieved over state institutions.
With regards to violations of international human rights law committed against migrants and asylum-seekers, the report found that international human trafficking and migrant smuggling networks, in collaboration with Libyan armed actors, expanded their activities along 17 identified human trafficking and migrant smuggling routes effectively operated through Libya since June 2023.
The Panel determined that 86 migrants, including nine children, trafficked along these routes were subjected to human rights abuses that involved unlawful deprivation of liberty, rape, enforced prostitution, slavery, forced labour and/or torture and other ill-treatment. These human rights violations, committed by Libyan armed actors and elements of trafficking networks, have been central to the efficient functioning of three unlawful business models – collaborative, decentralized and opportunistic models – that armed groups and criminal networks have used as key sources of their funding in Libya.
The Panel identified four illicit enterprises that involved collaboration between international trafficking and smuggling networks and Libyan armed actors controlling key operational areas in Benghazi, Musaid, Ras Ajdir, Tubruq and Zuwara.
These actors, including individuals of the Government of National Unity (GNU) Ministry of Interior (MoI) and the Libyan National Army (LNA), generated profits by exercising a leading role in coordinating trafficking and smuggling operations or permitting criminal networks to operate on the territory under their control in return for revenue and the use of migrants for forced labour. The report identified the Al-Habouni and Al-Katani networks in Tubruq and Musaid, noting both networks had well-developed logistical capabilities to move large groups of migrants through secret detention facilities, trafficking and smuggling them from Tubruq to Greece. In these facilities, 49 migrants endured beatings, floggings and other forms of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment under armed guard, without potable water and basic sanitation. These networks used their ties to LNA personnel to facilitate operations without disruption.
The report also identified the al-Mashai Network in Benghazi, reporting that Ali Al-Mashai, commander of the 20/20 battalion, was directly responsible for five cases of unlawful detention, torture and cruel and degrading treatment committed against migrants in an unofficial detention facility under the authority of LNA elements in the Benghazi port. The Panel further determined that members of the Tariq bin Ziyad (TBZ) maritime units, acting upon al-Mashai’s orders, were responsible for human rights violations committed against approximately 130 migrants, including children, in international waters.
In Libyan western border areas, migrants trafficked and smuggled through trafficking hubs in Zuwara into Tunisia and/or forcibly expelled from Tunisia back to Libya have been particularly vulnerable to arbitrary detention, mistreatment, overcrowded and unsanitary conditions and/or extortion in temporary detention facilities in Assah under the control of the Libyan Border Guard, and in Bir al Ghanam under the control of individuals working in the MoI.