Addis Ababa – Eritrean migrants have told AFP they are subjected to rape, torture, extortion and murder in Libyan detention centres despite hundreds of millions of euros in EU money designed to improve conditions and prevent them reaching Europe.
Thousands of young Eritreans have fled the Horn of Africa country to escape a brutal dictatorship under President Isaias Afwerki that imposes indefinite military service which the United Nations has likened to slavery.
But many end up trapped in Libya where they face “systematic and widespread human rights violations and abuses” in a network of around 40 detention centres, according to a United Nations report in February.
The European Union has provided at least 865 million euros (around $1 billion) to Libya since 2015 — channelled mostly through UN agencies and other international organisations — to curb the flow of migrants towards its shores and establish what it calls a “rights-based migration governance and management system”.
But migrants are subjected to torture, slavery and sexual violence that have become “a brutal and normalised reality”, the UN says.
Debesay, 19, escaped the Eritrean army in January 2025 and walked across Sudan to Libya with the aid of smugglers.
Upon arrival, he was kidnapped and detained by a group who “regularly beat and tortured us”, said Debesay, who gave a false name to protect his family back home, like others interviewed for this article.
His mother scraped together $9,000 to free him — an enormous sum in Eritrea — but his captors then sold him to another group, who held him for three months until they accepted his family had no more money and handed him over to the police.
AFP spoke to him by phone from a police detention centre in the Libyan city of Benghazi. Detainees are allowed to keep phones to try to raise ransom payments.
Libya has been plunged into armed conflict and political chaos since a NATO-backed uprising toppled long-time dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, leaving the country split between rival administrations in Tripoli and Benghazi.
“Almost everyone in our cell is weak and unhealthy,” said Debesay.
“We suffer from severe hunger and a lack of clean water. Around 150 people are packed into one small room. There are also infectious diseases, including TB and malaria, but there is very little medical treatment,” he added.
‘Severe pain’
Zerisenay, 35, told AFP he had been held in a detention centre for eight months, along with around 700 others from Ethiopia and Eritrea.
“We receive only one piece of bread in the morning, a small amount of rice for lunch, and the same for dinner,” he said.
“The police demand up to $4,000 to release a prisoner. Most of us have no money left because we already spent a lot of money crossing the Sahara,” he added.
One day, when migrants were banging on the doors to demand medical care, police officers entered and “fired bullets into the room”.
Two migrants were killed and dozens wounded, then were left without adequate treatment, Zerisenay said: “We can hear them crying and suffering from severe pain.”
Pregnant
Sexual violence is common.
Fyori, 25, fled Eritrea for Ethiopia in 2022 and then attempted to reach Europe this year.
She was first raped when her smugglers handed her over to a Sudanese tribe.
“One night, while we were sleeping, they came to where I was lying. They told me to wash myself and forced me out of the room. Then three men raped me,” she told AFP by phone.
She was released after a $9,500 payment by her family, but upon entering Libya, she was arrested and has been held for three months.
One night, “two armed guards took me and three Somali women out of our cell. The two guards raped me,” she said.
She is now pregnant.
“In the last three months, the only time I was allowed to get some fresh air was the day the guards raped me,” she said.
Eritrean Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel told AFP these were “deplorable acts for which only the concerned authorities in Libya are responsible.”
Libyan authorities did not respond to requests for comment.
Despite his situation, Debesay refuses to lose hope: “I want to survive, reach Europe, get an education, build a better life, and support my family.”
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Source: AFP
