Press conference “The Torture Factory” canceled

©UNICEF/UN052682/Romenzi

Press conference “The Torture Factory” canceled

Report on Human Rights Violations of Migrants and Refugees in Libya (2014-2020)

“These terrible things are happening now. You have to go to prisons in Libya to free those inside! ”

F., 24 years old dal Sudan, february 2020.

Since 2014, 660 thousand migrants have landed in Italy. About 90% of them have spent weeks, months or years in Libya, coming mainly from the countries of West Africa or the Horn of Africa. The report Torture Factory is based on over three thousand direct testimonies of migrants transiting from Libya, collected by operators of Doctors for Human Rights (Medici per I Diritti Umani – MEDU) over six years from 2014 to 2020.

The report analyzes the period from 2014 to today from three points of view: 1) the migratory flows arriving in Italy from the Libyan coasts; 2) the system of abuse and exploitation that takes place in Libya against migrants and refugees; 3) the psycho-physical consequences of the violence suffered. Two phases are also compared: the three years preceding the Italy-Libya agreement on migrants (February 2014- January 2017) and the three years following the same agreement (February 2017-January 2020).

The information and testimonies were collected in the places, in Italy and Africa, where MEDU operates by bringing both first medical assistance and social-health support to migrants, asylum seekers and refugees, and medical-psychological rehabilitation services for torture survivors. The stories collected – extraordinarily consistent with the places, times and methods of the violence that took place, inside and outside the Libyan detention centers – represent a formidable act of accusation on the tragedy that, in recent years, has been taking place on the migratory routes that lead to Europe through Libya.

Doctors for Human Rights (Medici per i Diritti Umani – MEDU) is an independent, non-profit humanitarian organization. MEDU aims to bring health aid to the most vulnerable populations in crisis situations in Italy and abroad, and to develop, within civil society, democratic and participatory spaces for the promotion of the right to health and other human rights.