The international NGO, Human Rights Association (HRA) yesterday issues a formal warning that the trafficking networks operating within Libya continue to prey upon Gambian nationals transiting the country in search of safe passage to Europe.
HRA said the Libyan authorities have not dismantled the exploitative detention and extortion system, and that the pipeline bringing Gambian nationals into the hands of Libyan traffickers remains open. The association called on the Libyan authorities to release all Gambian nationals held in arbitrary detention, to dismantle the trafficking networks operating within their territory, and to cooperate fully with the UN in the protection of all migrants on Libyan soil.
It said the trafficking system, as a violent and normalised business model in which migrants, asylum-seekers, and refugees are rounded up, arbitrarily detained, tortured, sexually violated, extorted, and sold between traffickers.
It said Gambians are entering Libya on the overland route through the Sahara before being detained in facilities by traffickers who demand ransom from families in The Gambia.
The HRA has reviewed documented accounts from Gambians who have survived detention and trafficking in Libya. One Gambian man, identified as Lamin, left Banjul in early 2025 following the collapse of his small business, intending to reach Europe and send money home to his family. He crossed into Libya through the southern desert route and was intercepted by an armed militia within days of entering the country. He was taken to a detention facility in the western region, held in a locked room with dozens of other migrants from across West and Central Africa, and told that his family must pay for his release. His family in Banjul, receiving a phone call from an unknown number demanding payment, borrowed from neighbours and relatives to raise what was asked. Lamin was not released. He was sold to a second trafficker who demanded a further payment. He spent four months in Libyan detention before finding a means of escape. He reached the coast and eventually crossed the Mediterranean on an overcrowded vessel. He survived. He described Libya as a place where a Gambian person is not a human being. He is a transaction. A second Gambian national, identified as Fatou, a young woman from the Brikama area, was separated from the group she was travelling with at a checkpoint in southern Libya. She was taken to a trafficking house where she was subjected to repeated sexual violence and forced to work under conditions of domestic servitude without pay. Her family received a ransom call. They were unable to raise the sum demanded. She was held for more than two months before being transferred to a different facility following a security operation in the area. She was eventually deported to Niger, from where she was assisted in returning to Gambia. She returned without any formal recognition of what she had endured and without any support for the psychological harm she carried with her.
These cases are not exceptional. The HRA’s review of documented accounts confirms that The Gambia has one of the highest rates of outward migration relative to population of any country in West Africa.
The HRA called specifically on the Libyan authorities to release immediately all Gambian nationals held in arbitrary detention within Libya’s territory; to dismantle the trafficking networks and extortion operations that prey upon Gambian and other West African migrants in detention; to cooperate fully with the United Nations Support Mission in Libya and all relevant UN human rights mechanisms in the protection, documentation, and voluntary repatriation of Gambian nationals; and to hold accountable all state-affiliated actors found to be participating in or facilitating the detention, extortion, and trafficking of migrants on Libyan soil.
HRA is an initiative of the WeCare Foundation, Cape Town, an international human rights organisation working to protect the rights of individuals facing unjust detention, denial of medical care, and due process violations, and engaging directly with United Nations mechanisms to advocate on their behalf.
