Doctors Without Borders (MSF) was offering basic healthcare, diagnosis, and treatment for tuberculosis (TB), mental health support, and sexual and reproductive health consultations to refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants who have no access to medical services in the country.
During the first three months of the year, we conducted general medical consultations and protection services, such as identifying minors and advocating for their release, in a detention centre near the capital, Tripoli. Along the coast in Zuwara, our general medical and sexual and reproductive health services were open to both Libyan and non-Libyan patients. Our teams also referred patients requiring specialist services to other organisations in Tripoli. Although we were forced to suspend operations at the end of March, patients we had identified with particularly complex or severe conditions continued to be evacuated by the UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, to Italy via a humanitarian corridor through the end of the year.
In Misrata, our teams have been working at the Misrata Chest Hospital with the Ministry of Health since 2022, mainly treating patients with TB, including multidrug-resistant TB, and supervising staff and testing activities. Between the end of 2024 and the beginning of 2025, we handed over the management of the hospital's TB unit to the Ministry of Health, while a team remained to provide technical support.
On 27 March 2025, MSF was instructed to suspend activities in Libya following the closure of our premises by the Libyan Internal Security Agency and the interrogation of several members of our staff. This wave of repression also affected nine other humanitarian organisations operating in the west of the country. In October 2025, MSF was ordered, in a letter from the Libyan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to leave the country. No reason was given to justify our expulsion, and the process was unclear. We continued to engage with the authorities, and we received an authorisation to restart our activities in January 2026.
