A documentary film, aired by the program “For the Story of the Rest” on 27/2/2023, showed the suffering of thousands of Sudanese refugees who flee the hell of death, war and poverty in their country, and cross the desert in an effort to reach Libya in the hope that it will be their gateway to a better life in a European country.
The documentary presented many of the tragedies suffered by these refugees, hundreds of whom die in the Libyan desert of thirst and hunger before they reach their destination in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, and whoever survives them does not necessarily mean that he has reached what he seeks, as UN reports confirm that many Sudanese asylum seekers are subjected to various types of torture and persecution, including rape, beatings, torture, forced labor, and even selling, in the most severe forms of human rights violations in the world.
According to the Refugee Organization, the number of Sudanese asylum seekers in Libya amounts to about 15,000 refugees, or about a third of the number of asylum seekers registered with it and coming from various African countries.
According to the statements of Michela Polizzi, a researcher on migration and asylum affairs at the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, many European and international courts are conducting investigations to identify the networks that carry out illegal smuggling of Sudanese refugees across the Libyan desert.
Polisi, however, blames a lot on the Libyan authorities, who say that international human rights organizations do not hide their dissatisfaction with the mistreatment of Sudanese refugees in Libya, stressing that the Libyan authorities must deal in accordance with the laws in force internationally in asylum cases, and that they respect the humanity of refugees and work to Securing their personal lives and material possessions.
In this context, Doctors Without Borders has confirmed that there is no opportunity for safety and security for Sudanese asylum seekers in Libya, except by leaving Libyan territory.
According to the documentary - which was presented by the program "The Story of the Rest" - many Sudanese refugees in Libya are from the Darfur region, and many of them are women and children who fled to Libya to escape with their lives after the killing of a number of their family members due to the conditions of the civil war in their regions.
Many refugees spoke to the documentary "The Story of the Rest" about the difficult conditions they go through during their escape journey through the Libyan desert of Kufra, and then their suffering after the arrival - of them - to Tripoli, where many of them are forced to work with forced labor, while many suffer before they find shelter. They sleep in it.
While the Libyan authorities do not recognize many of them as refugees and force them to return across the desert to their country, many asylum seekers complained of ill-treatment by the Sudanese embassy in Tripoli, and its failure to support them or provide them with any assistance.
However, the former head of the Legal Committee in the Libyan Supreme Council, Fathallah al-Sariri, refused sharpness in directing accusations against his country, and said that much of the suffering suffered by Sudanese asylum seekers in Libya is originally due to the nature of the difficult asylum journey that they make across the desert in irregular ways and in cooperation with smuggling gangs.
Al-Sariri also stressed that the unstable political situation his country is going through contributes to a great extent in the occurrence of some injustice against a number of asylum seekers, however he stressed that the Libyan authorities are very keen to respect and preserve the humanity of every refugee, whether regular or irregular, And that it deals in accordance with its Islamic laws and Sharia, which oblige it to respect human rights.
He said that the European countries, which blame Libya for returning irregular refugees to their countries, are themselves forcing thousands of refugees to return to their lands from whence they came.