New desert routes link south Libya to Chad and Sudan

South-east Libya is emerging as a desert corridor where regional war, smuggling and weak border control are beginning to converge, after satellite imagery suggested the appearance of new transport routes linking Libya to Chad and Sudan, as reported by The Libya Observer and agencies on April 21st.

The images suggest that Libya’s far south is becoming a more organised logistical space at a moment when the war in Sudan is deepening pressure on the borderlands.

At the centre of the report is the area around Kufra, where open source analysis by Eekad identified tracks consistent with truck and vehicle movement along recently established routes between late 2025 and early 2026.

The analysis said the route appears to run from south-east Libya towards the Chadian border before splitting, with one branch heading into Chad and another entering Sudan outside official crossings. In practical terms, this demonstrates a sustained cross border movement through terrain where the Libyan state has long struggled to impose meaningful control.

Making the situation more delicate, in April 22nd that a U.N. panel found the Subul al-Salam Battalion, aligned with Khalifa Haftar’s camp, helped move Colombian mercenaries, weapons and fuel through southern Libya to support Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces.

In December that a remote airstrip near Kufra became a vital supply line helping the RSF regain momentum in Sudan. The new route imagery therefore fits into a broader pattern in which southern Libya is not merely adjacent to Sudan’s conflict, but increasingly entangled in its logistics.

UNHCR’s latest Libya update says more than 559,920 Sudanese refugees have arrived in Libya since April 2023, showing how the Sudan war is reshaping movement across Libya’s southern frontier not only through armed supply networks, but through mass displacement.

Kufra and the desert corridor beyond it are no longer peripheral spaces at the edge of the Libyan state. They are increasingly becoming the ground where regional war, migration and contested sovereignty meet.

The Libya Observer plus agencies, maghrebi.org