EU migration defense | Violence in Libya: Fear of October 1st is growing

Six weeks ago, sea rescuers discovered eleven dead refugees on this boat and floating in the sea. However, the brutal EU isolation policy also leads to violence in the country of departure, Libya. Photo: Sea-Watch On September 7th, unknown people stormed the office of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Tripoli. They kicked in doors and filmed themselves abusing migrants and local staff at the center. The attack is part of a dangerous escalation against migrants and refugees that has been escalating for months. At the beginning of June, the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) warned of increasing hate speech and hate speech online. The trigger was disinformation about alleged plans to resettle refugees in Libya.

A week later, the Libyan news site Napd escalated the situation with a statement dubbed the "Will of the People Movement." It mentions October 1st as the deadline for all migrants and refugees to leave the country. Information gathered by the Refugees in Libya organization indicates that organized violent actions are being planned. A “first and last warning” to migrants and refugees that was spread on the Internet is quoted: “We no longer have mercy on you.”

Another Facebook post says: »Not just in Tobruk, but even in Tripoli and all Libyan cities. We are waiting for you - see you in the beautiful October." Tobruk is the capital of the breakaways in the east of Libya, Tripoli is the seat of the internationally recognized government in the west.

Amnesty International reported back in June that videos were circulating online showing how Black people in Tripoli, Zintan and Zliten were persecuted, mocked, beaten and physically abused by Libyans. The organization sees this as evidence "that the anti-migration discourses of state and non-state actors enable further racist abuse with impunity."

At the same time, in May of this year, the Bim Reports organization uncovered a network of 70 coordinated Facebook pages with more than two million followers. The sites specifically spread racist, violent content and disinformation against refugees. The campaigns were financed through paid meta-advertising; According to Bim Reports, there are many indications of central control.

The escalation of the already widespread indiscriminate violence, harassment and abuse against racialized population groups in Libya is taking place against the background of a European policy of anti-migration. European governments are outsourcing responsibility for resulting human rights abuses in Libya and the Mediterranean. At the same time, they contribute to xenophobic sentiments in Libya being taken up by local authorities and opinion makers.

Another currently active movement is Citizens Against Resettlement, which appeared publicly in June 2026. In a statement on September 15, the group criticized Europe for turning Libya into "an area of ​​forced containment [of migration] and a security barrier to protect the southern borders of the European Union." The EU finances and plans containment and detention measures on Libyan territory to deter migrants from crossing into Europe, and subsequently “completely rejects the moral and legal responsibilities and humanitarian consequences arising from these policies.”

The declaration addresses demands from refugee initiatives, solidarity groups and humanitarian organizations. These demand, among other things, that the EU commits itself to "safe exit corridors", brings those seeking protection directly to European territory, ends the Libya-Italy Memorandum of Understanding and that northern European countries "fully assume their historical and moral responsibilities".

However, criticism of Europe's externalized border policy is accompanied by a wave of nationalist mobilization against migrant and refugee communities. These are portrayed as “invaders” who need to be driven out. This heightens concerns that the October 1 deadline circulating online could be more than just a threat.

European externalization policies contribute to the dehumanization of migrants and refugees in Libya in two interrelated ways. On the one hand, it supports the so-called Libyan coast guard and militias in intercepting people in the Mediterranean and bringing them to dozens of official and unofficial detention camps across the country. An IRPI Media investigation recently found that the EU-funded interceptor fleet has grown to at least 97 Libyan vessels linked to 11 armed groups in western and eastern Libya.

On the other hand, these policies are also fueling nationalist resentment against refugees and migrants in Libya. They are blamed for perceived crises in state sovereignty and functioning. When the EU announced concrete steps to set up a rescue control center in Benghazi, eastern Libya, and defined deportations to "safe third countries" in more detail as part of the migration pact, many local people took this as a signal that Libya could be meant.

Against this background and fueled by disinformation about permanent settlements allegedly planned by the EU, UNHCR or IOM, people took to the streets in June under the slogan “Libya belongs to the Libyans” and blocked the UNHCR headquarters in Tripoli. At the regional level, neighborhood councils called on landlords to evict people without clear legal status from their apartments.

On June 23, the eastern Libyan government issued a decree banning the entry of Sudanese, Eritrean, Ethiopian and Somali nationals into Libya. Intensified repression followed. Khalifa Haftar, the powerful commander in eastern Libya, declared that "migrants must be expelled from the country by all means possible."

This was evident in systematic raids from Tobruk to Tripoli. Human rights activist Brirmi Jihed describes such incidents in Tajoura, east of Tripoli: "Family houses are combed like war zones, men are dragged out without clothes, women and children are also terrorized."

After the recurring raids, people end up in squalid conditions in the overcrowded camps. The Libyan Committee for Justice reports that around 2,000 Sudanese are imprisoned in Qanfouda prison alone, some for two years. Mistreatment is also reported.

Dehumanization follows a familiar political logic: vulnerable populations are blamed for political failures. European externalization policy not only outsources border control and responsibility. It also carries migration panic to Libya, which can be used there to justify tougher measures against migrants.

As Brirmi Jihed notes, migrants serve the Libyan rulers in two contradictory narratives: publicly as a threat that should not remain, politically as a justification for more funding and support from the EU and its member states.

The European containment policy is thus creating incentives in Libya to politically and financially exploit the ongoing “migration crisis” and at the same time to fuel xenophobic narratives. In this way, authorities and militias can demonstrate toughness and justify their actions to the public.

The Libyan state is playing a double game. Militias and official security forces work together and profit from the exploitation of discriminated communities - through forced labor, prostitution, torture and blackmail. This widespread exploitation is combined with racist incitement to violent expulsion in public spaces, without the Libyan authorities or the EU and its member states taking any significant action to counteract this.

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