publications

VII. Forced Return

Deportations are a central component of the Libyan government’s plan to reduce the numbers of undocumented foreigners. In the years 2003-2005, it returned roughly 140,000 individuals to their home countries. While the majority of these people were economic migrants who had entered the country illegally, some of them were asylum seekers and refugees who faced the risk of persecution or maltreatment back home.

Without a specific asylum law or procedure, including any clearly articulated process for determining whether persons face the risk of torture upon return, Libya has no way to determine whether the people it deports should receive protection. As the European Commission mission concluded after its Libya trip, “[T]he decision to return illegal immigrants to their country of origin seems to be taken for groups of nationalities rather than after having examined individual cases in detail.”126 UNHCR was more critical, expressing concern for the “minimum standards of treatment for persons who might be in need of international protection.”127

According to the Libyan government, the authorities returned 47,991 people in 2005. 35,627 of these people, or 74 percent, went home willingly, the government said, meaning the individuals surrendered to the authorities and agreed to go home. They deported the rest “after consulting with their countries’ authorities.”128 The European Commission report said that Libya deported 54,000 people in 2004, and 43,000 in 2003, although the report does not specify how many of these volunteered to go home.129

As mentioned above, the concept of a voluntary return is imprecise. As the senior immigration official `Ali Mdorad conceded, some people volunteer to go home because they fear arrest, detention and forced return.130 Abuses during arrest and detention, as well as general discrimination against foreigners, may further persuade individuals that going home willingly is the best course.

Deportations of people to countries where they are at risk of abuse are in direct violation of international instruments ratified by Libya. In particular, Article 3 of the Convention against Torture states that “No State Party shall expel, return (“refouler”) or extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture.”

The Libyan government claims it is only returning unauthorized economic migrants, so they face no risk of torture. “They were sent back legally at our cost,” Assistant Secretary of Foreign Liaison and International Cooperation Sa`id Eribi Hafiana said.131

In its third periodic report to the CAT Committee in 1998, the Libyan government stated that, “expulsion, extradition or refoulement [to torture or ill-treatment]” are prohibited under Libyan law.132 It is not clear whether the Libyan government was referring to Libyan Law 20, “On Enhancing Freedom,” which says the government should not “abandon the refugees and their protection,” or to the direct effect of international treaties such as the CAT.

In its April 2006 memo to Human Rights Watch, the government elaborated on its position, stating that both Libyan law and international obligations prevented refoulement:

Regarding the claim that asylum seekers are detained and deported, the GPC for Foreign Liaison and International Cooperation asserts that the Libyan Jamahiriya is not party to the 1951 Geneva Convention on Refugees and its appended protocol but that, in accordance with domestic legislation—in the first place, the Great Green Charter for Human Rights in the Jamahiriyan Era and the Law on Enhancing Freedom—Libya provides a haven for those struggling for freedom and the law prohibits the transfer of refugees to any other party for their protection. The GPC for Foreign Liaison and International Cooperation clarifies that the report greatly confuses illegal migrants whose goal is to stay or migrate to other countries with those who enter the country legally and declare their intent to stay, requesting freedom for which Libya will accept them as guests. As for those deported, they are the ones who either entered the country illegally or legally entered but were caught trying to sneak away to other countries, and they were turned away only after the appropriate legal steps were taken against them.

The GPC for Foreign Liaison and International Cooperation asserts that Libya would not turn a person over to a country or turn him away at a time when there exists evidence that he may be exposed to torture or that he would not receive fair judgment in the country to which he would be deported, based on domestic law and the agreements that Libya has signed, among them the Convention Against Torture. On that basis, the agreements with other countries which the Libyan Jamahiriya has signed, under which migrants are transferred, does not allowing transfer in the case of political crimes.133

In the Libyan government’s view, it is doing undocumented foreigners a favor by sending them home. The smugglers’ route to Italy is dangerous, and hundreds of people die every year in overcrowded boats, immigration officials said. And the repatriation effort is paid for by the Libyan government, at great expense. According to `Ali Mdorad, between August 2004 and February 2005, the government spent $16 million on returns.134

According to the Libyan government’s April memo, in 2005 the government spent 3,678,756 Libyan dinars on “deportation operations,” which equals roughly U.S. $2,935,000.

As mentioned above, with the lack of an asylum law and asylum procedures to implement the general principles of Libyan law and international human rights treaties, it remains unclear how the government distinguishes between economic migrants and asylum seekers and refugees. It is not known which authorities review asylum requests and on what criteria their decisions are based.

The Deportation Process

As the previous two chapters make clear, the arrest and detention process is often arbitrary and chaotic, with detainees held in a variety of facilities, many of them with substandard conditions. The evidence suggests that the government has taken positive steps to improve conditions and improve the process, although deportations without respect for minimum standards continue apace.

Libyan immigration officials claim that, after non-nationals are arrested, whether attempting to cross a border or during an urban sweep, the authorities first contact their embassies to verify identity and nationality. Libyan officials complain that some embassies are slow to respond, which extends the detention period. Egypt, Niger and Chad are quick and usually respond within one week, officials said, while Nigeria and Ghana are frequently slow.135

Providing the names of detained foreigners to embassies potentially places asylum seekers and refugees at risk by allowing governments to identify them. Again, the Libyan government claims it is not a problem because all of the detainees are illegal migrants. Whether they are legal or illegal migrants, without an asylum procedure there is no way to guarantee that people with legitimate fears of persecution by their governments are not among the detainees.

The quickest returns are of persons sent back from Italy because the Libyan and Italian governments have arranged their onward removal to countries of origin prior to their arrival in Libya (see Chapter X, “Role of the European Union and Italy”). “This is arranged before they come [from Italy], so we do not hold them,” said Hadi Khamis, the director of Libya’s deportation camps. He explained, “They are not held in al-Fellah but sent right home.”136 In most cases, this means return by land to Egypt because most are from Egypt. According to Khamis, the Libyans returned about 300 people sent back from Italy in the first half of 2005. The Libyan government later informed Human Rights Watch that the Italian government returned 1,876 “illegal immigrants” to Libya in 2005, and the Libyan government then sent these people to their countries of origin.137

Dangers During Deportation

The deportation process has become more orderly with time. At first, the Libyan government sent groups back to their home countries by land in dangerous conditions. According to some reports, the authorities sometimes left deportees stranded and some died along the way. An Italian journalist who has reported extensively on migration transiting Libya and traveled Libya’s southern borders told Human Rights Watch that, after a series of police sweeps in August 2003, Libyan authorities returned some fifty Egyptians to Egypt by truck and seven men died in transit.138 The same journalist also reported fifty deaths of people being returned to Niger in October 2004, when their truck overturned.139 Human Rights Watch did not independently confirm his accounts.

On April 14, 2005, the European Parliament passed a resolution that called on the Italian government to cease the collective expulsions of migrants and refugees to Libya due to that country’s “recent massive repatriations of foreigners in conditions guaranteeing neither their dignity nor their survival.” The resolution cited “Libyan sources” as reporting “106 alleged deaths resulting from these expulsions.”140 The “Libyan sources” cited in the resolution remain unclear.141

For large groups, the Libyan government has chartered planes. At first they used cargo planes without seats, prompting some African governments to complain. One ambassador in Libya from a sub-Saharan African country told Human Rights Watch that some deportees, including sick people, had to stand five to six hours in the plane, which had no toilets. Those taken by road via Chad or Niger faced even more difficulties, he said. If the transport vehicles had problems, Libyan officials stranded the deportees and the embassy never heard what happened to them.142 In March 2004, the Ghanaian Interior Minister condemned the inhumane conditions for deportees. Libya had returned some 6,000 Ghanaians in 2004, he said, and was planning another 14,000 for 2005.143

Migrants, asylum seekers and refugees interviewed by Human Rights Watch frequently reported an additional problem: bribes demanded by Libyan border guards, soldiers and police. For a few hundred dollars, the government’s security escorts sometimes offered to let deportees go. In one example, the Ethiopian refugee Iskinder, whose experience of abuse in detention is described in the previous chapter, told Human Rights Watch that in early 2003 soldiers loaded him and other detainees onto military trucks and drove them to the border with Sudan. There the soldiers said they would let them go for the price of $200 per person. Iskinder paid and made it to Tripoli, where he paid a smuggler to take him to Italy.144

Eritreans at High Risk of Refoulement

Since 2002, Libya has deported hundreds of Eritreans, and some of them have faced serious abuse upon their return.145 A well-publicized mass deportation took place on July 21, 2004, when Libya forcibly returned 109 Eritrean nationals on an Italian-funded Air Libia Tibesti chartered flight.146 According to human rights groups, the Eritrean government detained the deportees upon arrival and held them incommunicado in a secret prison.147

A few weeks later, on August 27, the Libyan authorities attempted to forcibly return another group of seventy-five Eritreans, among them six children. Afraid of returning home, the Eritreans hijacked the plane and forced the pilot to land in Sudan, where sixty people from the group sought asylum. UNHCR interviewed the sixty asylum seekers and determined that they needed protection.148 In a statement issued on September 21, UNHCR said:

UNHCR conducted interviews with sixty of the Eritrean passengers after their arrival in Khartoum on 27 August. The group said that they had been detained without charges for a prolonged period of time in the Libyan town of Kufra, and had endured repeated physical abuse. They also said that, despite their request to see UNHCR, they had not been given access to any asylum procedure. Additionally, the group was never informed of the decision to deport them to Eritrea, were forced to board a special charter flight, and only found out after their plane took off that the destination was their country of origin. Sixty of the seventy-five passengers have since been granted refugee status in Sudan.149

UNHCR strongly rebuked the Libyan government, reminding it to respect its obligations under the OAU Convention governing the specific aspects of refugee problems in Africa of 1969 (African Refugee Convention – see Chapter IX, “Legal Standards”). “The deportation of potential refugees from Eritrea on 27 August constitutes a severe violation of the OAU Convention and clearly goes against the norms of international protection and the principle of non-refoulement,” the statement said.

One refugee interviewed by Human Rights Watch in Italy said that Libyan police had detained him in Libya alongside a group of other Eritreans. He believes the government expelled the group in July or August 2004. “Like me, they were refugees,” he said. “They called themselves refugees, and they tried to say ‘we are refugees’ but there is a diplomatic agreement between the governments of Libya and Eritrea, so they always return those the [Eritrean] government wants.” He knew four of the people well, and they were all members of Eritrean opposition groups working from Sudan, he said.150

Temporary Reprieves for Some Nationalities

According to Libyan immigration officials, the government does not return people with certain nationalities because conditions in their home countries do not allow for return. “Somalis are a problem because no planes can land there,” Muhammad al-Ramalli said. “Even if the Somali embassy cooperates, which is rare, we cannot coordinate the plane. So I decided to let them go from the camp.”151 As of April 2005, he said, 120 Somalis had volunteered to repatriate but there were no flights.

`Ali Mdorad told Human Rights Watch that the government will not deport people if they were from a “hotspot” such as Liberia or Somalia, although Human Rights Watch researchers met Liberians when they visited the al-Fellah detention center on April 25 and May 9, 2005.152 Muhammad al-Ramalli said the government was not returning fifty-seven Liberians and twenty-seven Ivoreans due to the situation in those countries. As of April 2005, Libya had an informal agreement with Sudan not to deport anyone, `Ali Mdorad said. If they come from Darfur, they cannot return them to Khartoum, he explained, because the Sudanese government has no capacity to return the individual to other parts of the country.153

The Libyan government allows individuals who benefit from these temporary reprieves to seek contractual work; they can apply for a residence permit if they find a job, Mdorad said. If they fail to find work, the government temporarily may tolerate their illegal presence so long as they remain registered and ready for return when conditions allow.

The Libyan government cannot return some people because their countries are too far away, or because their numbers are too few to justify charter flights, `Ali Mdorad explained. For this reason, sometimes refugees or migrants held indefinitely in deportation camps claim to come from a third country like Ghana or Nigeria in order to get out of detention. Third country returns – returning a person to a country that is not his or her country of origin – from Libya only take place unknowingly, under such circumstances, Mdorad said.

Libyan authorities also told the European Commission delegation of November-December 2004 that the government did not return people to areas of conflict. In its report, however, the commission noted that it was “unable to assess who makes the decision that one or another area is excluded for repatriation purposes, and how such a decision is then implemented in operational terms.”154




126European Commission, “Technical Mission to Libya on Illegal Immigration, 27 Nov – 6 Dec 2004, Report.”

127 “UNHCR Concerned Over Continued Forcible Return of Potential Refugees from Libya,” UNHCR Briefing Notes, September 21, 2004.

128 Libyan government memo to Human Rights Watch, April 18, 2006. See Appendix I.

129 European Commission report. According to the report, in 2003, 38 percent of the returnees were Egyptians, 15 percent Nigerians, 12 percent Sudanese, 11 percent Ghanians, and 10 percent Nigerians. The remaining nationals were Moroccans, Malians, Eritreans and Somalis, and a small percentage came from Bangladesh, Pakistan and the Far East. 2004 saw a significant increase in nationals coming from Egypt and Sub-Saharan Africa, particularly to Nigeria, Niger, Ghana and Mali.

130 Human Rights Watch interview with `Ali Mdorad, Tripoli, April 30, 2005.

131 Human Rights Watch interview with Eribi Hafiana, Tripoli, April 21, 2005.

132 UN Doc CAT/C/44/Add.3, available at http://www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/(Symbol)/CAT.C.44.Add.3.En?OpenDocument, as of March 6, 2006.

133 Libyan government memo to Human Rights Watch, April 18, 2006. See Appendix I.

134 Human Rights Watch interview with `Ali Mdorad, Tripoli, April 30, 2005.

135 Human Rights Watch interview with Muhammad al-Ramalli, Tripoli, April 25, 2005.

136 Human Rights Watch interview with Hadi Khamis, Tripoli, May 9, 2005.

137 Libyan government memo to Human Rights Watch, April 18, 2006. See Appendix I.

138 Human Rights Watch interview with Fabrizio Gatti, Rome, May 26, 2005.

139 Fabrizio Gatti, “L’ultimo viaggio dei dannati del Sahara [“The Last Journey of the Damned of the Sahara”],” L’Espresso, Rome, March 24, 2005.

140 European Parliament resolution on Lampedusa, April 14, 2005, available at http://www.europarl.eu.int/omk/sipade3?PUBREF=-//EP//TEXT+TA+P6-TA-2005-0138+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN&L=EN&LEVEL=2&NAV=S&LSTDOC=Y, as of May 7, 2006.

141 The resolution may have cited Fabrizio Gatti’s article, “L’ultima viaggio dei dannati del Sahara,” which also mentions 106 as an “official number.”

142 Human Rights Watch interview with ambassador to Libya from an unnamed African country, Tripoli, May 2005. The U.S. Department of State Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2001 also reported that Libya had “deported hundreds of thousands of African migrant workers by driving them in convoys to the southern border and leaving them stranded in the desert.”

143 “Ghana Defends Rights of Illegal Immigrants in Libya,” Afronews, March 11, 2004, available at http://www.afrol.com/articles/15868, as of May 7, 2006.

144 Human Rights Watch interview with Iskinder S., Rome, May 26, 2005.

145 Human Rights Watch asked the Libyan government whether it had a formal agreement on returns with the Eritrean government but, as of May 1, 2006, the Libyan government had not replied.

146 The flight is listed in Annex 2, “Charter Flights List,” of the European Commission report from its 2004 Libya trip.

147 Amnesty International, “Report 2005-Libya,” available at http://web.amnesty.org/report2005/lby-summary-eng, as of March 6, 2006. See also Human Rights Watch letters to Mu`ammar al-Qadhafi, July 22, 2004, and Eritrean President Issayas Afewerki, August 3, 2004.

148 See “Eritreans in Plane Hijack Drama,” BBC News, August 27, 2004, available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3605184.stm, as of May 7, 2006.

149 UNHCR Briefing Notes, “UNHCR Concerned Over Continued Forcible Return of Potential Refugees from Libya,” September 21, 2004.

150 Human Rights Watch interview with Alamin S., Rome, May 24, 2005.

151 Human Rights Watch interview with the Muhammad al-Ramalli, Tripoli, April 25, 2005.

152 During the April 25 visit, Human Rights Watch briefly interviewed three men from Liberia. During the May 9 visit, immigration officials told Human Rights Watch that Liberians were among the detainees awaiting deportation.

153 Human Rights Watch interview with `Ali Mdorad, Tripoli, April 30, 2005.

154 European Commission, “Technical Mission to Libya on Illegal Immigration, 27 Nov – 6 Dec 2004, Report.”