Libya: active smuggling of migrants from Bangladesh to Tripoli

Text by: Houda Ibrahim Follow

The massacre this week of thirty people including twenty-six migrants from Bangladesh, in Mizdah, 160 km from Tripoli, Libyan capital, drew attention to the networks of migrants from Bangladesh who reach Libya in order to reach the European coasts.

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The Foreign Ministry of Bangladesh denounced on Friday May 29 the fact that these massacred migrants had been kidnapped, detained and tortured in Libya by smugglers, with a view to extracting ransoms from them. They had passed through Egypt and were kidnapped not far from Benghazi in eastern Libya.

Bangladesh, a small country with large populations in Southeast Asia, is now one of the main countries of origin for migrants seeking to reach Europe via the Mediterranean, according to the International Organization for Migration. The IOM cites economic reasons due in particular to the drought which annually displaces 700,000 people inside Bangladesh. Many prefer the “  European paradise  ” to the slums of Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh.

Migrants fly before reaching Libya

Fictitious companies for the employment of foreign labor are set up by networks of smugglers in Dacca and especially in Tripoli, the Libyan capital. These networks offer fictitious employment contracts in Libya and promise candidates to make their journey easier. Indeed, these migrants take the plane to reach Libya, an easier and less dangerous way than crossing the desert practiced by migrants from sub-Saharan Africa.

These migrants pass either by the Dacca-Dubai-Istanbul line to reach Tripoli, or by Egypt from where they cross the land borders towards Libya. According to the Bangladesh Ministry of Foreign Affairs, this was the case of the migrants killed this week.

According to AFP, each migrant pays these well-established networks of traffickers between 7,000 and 15,000 euros, or twenty years of average salary in Bangladesh.

Kidnapped and Tortured if Families Don't Pay Ransom

Once there, the scenario is the same as with African migrants, namely that they are abducted by the same people who organized and facilitated their trip. A ransom is then demanded from their families. If they do not pay, they will be tortured and will have to do all kinds of forced labor for months.

This information gathered from the testimonies of migrants who reached Europe is supplemented by statements from security sources in Cairo and Tripoli. A Libyan official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the daily Qatari al Arbi al Jadid that the sudden increase in the number of foreign labor employment offices in Tripoli has caught the attention of the authorities.

The interrogation of these migrants exposed the illegal activities of these offices, which each time presented real documents and disputed that they were aware of their clients' immigration plans. Also according to this official, 25% of migrants reach Libya through these offices.

These crimes were also denounced by Egypt, which arrested mediators from these fictitious job offices, operating in Cairo.

► Read also: Libya: dozens of migrants shot dead by traffickers

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Libya: dozens of migrants shot dead by traffickers