Libya

Libya remains fragmented by a decade of conflict and political instability. The breakdown of law and order, the collapse of the economy, and fighting have decimated the healthcare system

Almost all people who attempt to cross the Mediterranean Sea pass through Libya. Between January and mid-August 2021, the EU-funded Libyan Coastguard intercepted over 22,000 people at sea and returned them to Libya. This has resulted in an increase in the number of people arbitrarily detained in detention centres, often in violent, inhumane conditions.

MSF provides medical care and food and hygiene kits to people held in detention centres in the country’s northwest.

Migrants and refugees living outside detention centres are exposed to life-threatening risks, such as being held captive by trafficking networks in clandestine jails. Our teams provide healthcare to migrant communities outside of detention – including those who have escaped – in Tripoli and Bani Walid.

MSF also supports the Ministry of Health in its tuberculosis response; we provide technical support in Misrata and Tripoli, and provide diagnosis and treatment to patients in two facilities. We provide ante- and postnatal care to mostly Libyan women in Bani Walid.

Dire conditions for migrants and refugees in detention centres in Libya

Our returned Head of Mission, Beatrice Lau describes the conditions for migrants and refugees in detention centres in Libya. MSF suspended activities in the detention centres in Tripoli in late June 2021, as a response to the level and rate of violence observed towards migrants and refugees held indefinitely in Libya’s detention centres. Despite this latest decision, efforts to intercept, forcibly return and arbitrarily detain men, women and children in detention centres in Libya are ongoing.

Our activities in 2023 in Libya

Data and information from the International Activity Report 2023.

219

STAFF IN 2023 (FULL-TIME EQUIVALENT)

€13.2 M

13.2M

EXPENDITURE IN 2023

2011

YEAR MSF FIRST WORKED IN THE COUNTRY

MSF IN LIBYA IN 2023 In 2023, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) provided essential healthcare to refugees, asylum seekers and migrants in Libya. Thousands are held in overcrowded detention centres, and hundreds of thousands are living in precarious conditions in urban settings.

In western Libya, our teams offered medical and mental healthcare to people living in vulnerable circumstances, in particular migrants, refugees and asylum seekers, who otherwise have no access to medical services. In Zuwara, our activities included general healthcare, gynaecological consultations and mental health support for both Libyan and non-Libyan patients. In Misrata, our teams conducted medical consultations in a prison and organised referrals for detainees requiring specialist treatment.

In the capital, Tripoli, our teams provided general healthcare, mental health support, and sexual and reproductive health services to migrants, refugees and asylum seekers held in detention centres. We continued to witness and hear accounts of people being assaulted, sexually abused, beaten, killed and systematically deprived of their most basic human rights, including proper access to food, water, sanitation and medical care, inside these facilities. Additionally, people told our staff about practices of forced labour, kidnapping, human trafficking, extortion and other human rights abuses in Libya.

Tuberculosis (TB) remained another focus of our activities in Libya in 2023. We continued to support the Ministry of Health TB unit in Zuwara and the isolation unit for the treatment of multidrug-resistant TB in Misrata chest hospital.

Throughout 2023, our teams were repeatedly denied entry to Tripoli detention centres, and eventually lost access completely by August. By late August, we ended medical activities in Tripoli detention centres and urban settings. We also ended our support to the National Programme on Tuberculosis and at Abu-Setta hospital for respiratory diseases by the end of 2023.

In September, severe flooding devastated the coastal city of Derna in eastern Libya. More than 4,000 people died in a few hours, and 8,000 were reported missing. Our teams responded to the disaster by donating medical items and conducting medical and mental health consultations through three general healthcare centres.