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UN Human Rights Spokesperson Thameen Al Kheetan on UN report on Migrants in Libya victims of violent business model of systemic violations and abuses
These are the findings of a new report by the UN Human Rights Office and the UN Support Mission in Libya – covering the period from January 2024 to December 2025.
“The report describes how migrants are rounded up and abducted by criminal trafficking networks, often with ties to Libyan authorities, and to criminal networks abroad. They are separated from their families, arrested and transferred to detention facilities without due process, often at gunpoint, in what amounts to arbitrary detention,” Al-Kheetan said.
“In detention, migrants are routinely subjected to horrific violations and abuses, including slavery, torture, ill-treatment, forced labour, forced prostitution and other forms of sexual violence, ransom and extortion,” Al-Kheetan added.
The report uncovers an “exploitative model preying on migrants, asylum-seekers and refugees in situations of heightened vulnerability [that] has become ‘business as usual’ – a brutal and normalised reality.”
“Migrants also described horrific attempts to cross the central Mediterranean. Interceptions by Libyan actors were frequently dangerous and involved threats, hazardous manoeuvres, and excessive use of force, putting people’s lives at risk. Those intercepted are often forcibly returned to Libya, where they risk facing the same cycle of abuse,” said Al-Kheetan.
Suki Nagra, the UN Human Rights Representative for the UN Mission in Libya, who joined the briefing remotely, shared some of the horrific testimonies that are documented in the report, ” A Nigerian woman, who was trafficked to Libya in 2021, endured two years of forced sexual servitude in Tripoli before being moved to a household in Zuwara following a police raid, where she was forced into domestic slavery, denying her freedom and wages. She left Libya in February 2025.”
“There are no words to describe the never-ending nightmare these people are forced into, only to feed the mounting greed of traffickers and those in power profiting from a system of exploitation,” Al-Kheetan said.
The report also decries frequent collective expulsion from Libya to other countries. These occur without examination of each individual’s case, breaching the prohibition of collective expulsions, and denying the right to seek asylum.
“We call on the Libyan authorities to release immediately all those arbitrarily detained in both unofficial and official detention centres, to cease dangerous interception practices, and to decriminalise irregular entry, stay and exit,” the spokesperson said.
“We urge the international community, including the European Union, to establish a moratorium on interceptions and returns to Libya until adequate human rights safeguards are ensured,” he said
For more information and media requests, please contact
In Geneva:
Thameen Al-Kheetan: +41 22 917 4232 /thameen.alkheetan@un.org
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STORY: UN Human Rights Spokesperson Thameen Al-Kheetan and Suki Nagra representative in Libya for UN Human Rights on UN report on Migrants in Libya - victims of “violent business model”
TRT: 03:20
SOURCE: OHCHR/ UNOG
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: English/NATS
ASPECT RATIO: 16:9
DATELINE: 17 February 2026, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
SHOTLIST
- Exterior shot: Palais des Nations
- Interior shot : Briefing room
- SOUNDBITE (English)—Thameen Al-Kheetan, Spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR): “Migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers in Libya are subjected to ruthless and systematic human rights violations and abuses, which include killings, torture, sexual violence and trafficking.”
- Cut away: Briefing room
- SOUNDBITE (English)—Thameen Al-Kheetan, Spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR): “The report describes how migrants are rounded up and abducted by criminal trafficking networks, often with ties to Libyan authorities, and to criminal networks abroad. They are separated from their families, arrested and transferred to detention facilities without due process, often at gunpoint, in what amounts to arbitrary detention.”
- Cut away: Briefing room
- SOUNDBITE (English)—Thameen Al-Kheetan, Spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR): “In detention, migrants are routinely subjected to horrific violations and abuses, including slavery, torture, ill-treatment, forced labour, forced prostitution and other forms of sexual violence, ransom and extortion.”
- Cut away: Briefing room
- SOUNDBITE (English)—Thameen Al-Kheetan, Spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR): “Migrants also described horrific attempts to cross the central Mediterranean. Interceptions by Libyan actors were frequently dangerous and involved threats, hazardous manoeuvres, and excessive use of force, putting people’s lives at risk. Those intercepted are often forcibly returned to Libya, where they risk facing the same cycle of abuse.”
- Cut away: Briefing room
- SOUNDBITE (English)—Suki Nagra, the UN Human Rights Representative for the UN Mission in Libya: “We received information from a Nigerian woman, who was trafficked to Libya in 2021, and she endured two years of forced sexual servitude in Tripoli before being moved to a household in Zuwara following a police raid, where she was then again forced into domestic slavery, denying her freedom and wages. And then she left Libya in February 2025.”
- Cut away: Briefing room
- SOUNDBITE (English)—Thameen Al-Kheetan, Spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR): “There are no words to describe the never-ending nightmare these people are forced into, only to feed the mounting greed of traffickers and those in power profiting from a system of exploitation.”
- Cut away: Briefing room
- SOUNDBITE (English)—Thameen Al-Kheetan, Spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR): “We call on the Libyan authorities to release immediatelyall those arbitrarily detained in both unofficial and official detention centres, to cease dangerous interception practices, and to decriminalise irregular entry, stay and exit.”
- Cut away: Briefing room
- SOUNDBITE (English)—Thameen Al-Kheetan, Spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR): “We urge the international community, including the European Union, to establish a moratorium on interceptions and returns to Libya until adequate human rights safeguards are ensured.”
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