Refugees in Libya
We don't have any expectations anymore. We just need evacuation.
Naeima Yaqoub
8 December, 2021
Tripoli Libya - UNHCR headquarters
I’m shivering, don’t mind me, I’m sick. As you all know, I’ve been under the rain and water, etc. I’m just wondering if the human rights organizations, the UNHCR, or whoever is supposed to be speaking on our behalf—are they seeing us? Are they seeing these children? These aren’t even all of them; most are still laying sick in the community day center over there.
If they are accusing men of being violent for asking for our rights, since we can’t come here in the rain or in the middle of the night, then where is the kindness they say they’re giving us? Where are the services they’re supposed to be providing? We’re more than 300 ladies over there, and nobody has called us. Nobody has asked, “What are we? What are we doing? What are we eating? What are we even covering with at midnight?”
Forget about everything else. Have they seen the elderly, the children, the violence that they accuse us of causing? Have they ever experienced it themselves? Even if it means using violence against us, I need them to answer me. Why are they doing this? For what reason? Are we human? Are we supposed to have rights?
This document is supposed to give me rights all over the world, not just in this country. They’re supposed to give me rights all over the world, yet it seems to be just another piece of paper that might as well be thrown in the water.
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“The UNHCR is UNFAIR”
David Yambio
June 19, 2023 | English | French | Arabic
David Yambio from South Sudan is one of the spokespersons of “Refugees in Libya” and has recently managed to escape the Libyan hell. In this video he describes how he had initially fled from his war-torn home country to only experience “nightmares (...) made of torture, exploitations, and different circles of violence” in Libya. Even though David repeatedly called for protection and assistance to UNHCR Libya over a period of more than three years, he was met with nothing, but constant neglect, uncertainty, and brutal violence on the part of the UN agency. In response to the continuous violation of their rights and many unanswered calls, David, together with other refugees stranded inside the country, decided to form the collective “Refugees in Libya”. Their goal was to educate themselves about their rights, to protest against the unfair treatment that they had experienced for years, and to demand their voices for protection to be heard.
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“We expected UNHCR to negotiate for us. They did nothing”
Anonymous
June 19, 2023 | English | Arabic | French
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A Sudanese refugee reports how he survived and escaped from the violent and murderous raids and mass arrests against refugees in the area of Gargaresh in October 2021. Shortly after, he, amongst thousands of other refugees, went in front of the UNHCR office in Tripoli to raise his voice and to demand evacuation to a safe place. After having spent three months and several days camping and protesting for their rights, the person in the video recounts how he and many of his comrades were brutally evicted and imprisoned in Ain Zara detention camp on 10 January 2022. While they expected that UNHCR would “come and negotiate and to find a solution”, nothing happened. Until today, they remain in the detention camp of Ain Zara and UNHCR keeps ignoring their calls.
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“UNHCR usually doesn't reply on the phone”
Hassan Zakkaria
June 19, 2023 | English | Arabic | French
Hassan is from Sudan and has arrived in Libya in 2019. After enduring months of constant war and conflict in the South of Tripoli, he managed to leave and apply for asylum at the office of UNHCR Libya. Despite the numerous challenges refugees in Libya are facing on a day-to-day basis, Hassan, until today, experienced hardly any support and a lack of protection from the side of the agency. Hassan also reports about how UNHCR in Libya is not responding to phone calls, usually denies people access to its office, and provides only very limited services to refugees in Libya. Even after Libyan authorities had used unlawful lethal force and conducted mass arrests against refugees in the area of Gargaresh in October 2021 and many people had nowhere to go, UNHCR Libya remained silent. In consequence to their calls for protection continuously being ignored by the agency, Hassan, David, and other refugees in Libya founded the movement “Refugees in Libya”, as it “is the only way we have to raise our voices and to tell what is going on”.
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We are calling for emergent intervention to help us and save us, anonymous
Anonymous
June 19, 2023 | Arabic
I am a refugee like thousands of other refugees in Libya. Since I am here in Libya, I personally faced a lot of horrible incidents. I tried five times to cross the sea to Europe but with zero success, I had no chance to flee this unjust land of libya. We are afraid and threatened by the libyan militias and the international organizations. We just call for simple things, we call for fundamental rights such as housing, work, education, health system. Libya is a state of killers and traffickers. I have been registered with UNHCR since 2020, but I didn’t receive anything from them, no protection, no resettlement, nothing. I ran away from the prison because UNHCR didn’t protect me nor defend my rights, my simple rights. Unfortunately, it becomes our duty and task to raise our voices asking for help and evacuation to safe places. We are calling for emergent intervention to help us and save us from this hell. We demand all human rights organizations and groups to amplify our voices and our demands, maybe, they can do something that UNHCR refused, or failed, to do.
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I want to offer better future for my kids
Anonymous
June 19, 2023 | Arabic
A sudanese Asylum-seeker who arrived in Libya through Egypt. He was arrested at the Egyptian borders but then released in Tobruk. Tried to cross the sea a couple of times but failed. He decided to start his own business and opened a restaurant in Tripoli but the militias seized his restaurant and arrested him again. He managed to apply for protection at UNHCR. I have not been able to contact my kids and my wife since last October. I am broke financially and have no money, Also, mentally broke because of all that I face in Libya. All I hope is to offer a better future for my kids. To be able to provide them with the safety and life I didn’t have. I am dreaming to be one day at a safe place with no violations and no humiliations.
​We demand for nothing bigger, but our rights
anonymous
June 19, 2023 | English
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A refugee from Sudan describes how he had fled his war-torn home country in the hope to find safety in Libya. However, his expectations were soon proved wrong. Registering and claiming protection at UNHCR in Libya in 2021 until today has changed nothing about his dire situation. Even after trying to cross the Mediterranean to reach safety in Europe, being subjected to inhumane treatment and detention by the so-called Libyan Coast Guard various times, UNHCR remained silent. To finally make his voice heard, he and other refugees started to protest in front of the UNHCR office in Tripoli. On 10 January 2022, the protest was violently dispersed, and many protesters were detained. In light of all these disappointments, he again highlights that refugees in Libya only demand their basic human rights, as the right to safety and thus to be evacuated from Libya.