EU–Libya migration policies risk increasing human rights abuses

The arrival in Savona of the Ocean Viking, on may 28th, carrying 68 people rescued after leaving Libya has renewed scrutiny of Europe’s migration policies and cooperation with Libyan authorities, with survivors reporting that they had spent 24 hours at sea before being found exhausted and dehydrated in the Maltese search and rescue zone.

La Stampa and agencies reported how the passengers had not simply crossed a dangerous stretch of sea, they had travelled through a migration system in which Libya is expected to prevent departures, intercept boats and absorb people whom European governments do not want reaching European territory.

The European Union describes migration management as one of its main areas of cooperation not only with Libya but with the whole of North Africa. Its stated priorities include protecting migrants and refugees while also supporting local communities and improving their conditions at detention centres, helping voluntary returns and evacuating those in need of any international protection.

The EU also supports Libyan borders through the European Union Border Assistance Missions (EUBAM) Libya, a civilian mission that advises, trains and mentors Libyan authorities responsible for land, sea and air borders. In June 2025 the European Council extended that mission until June 2027 with a budget of €52 million linking its work to border control, migrant smuggling, trafficking and counterterrorism.

Europe’s official argument is that stronger Libyan institutions can reduce criminal departures, save lives and give the country more control over a migration burden that it did not create alone. Libya, for its part, has repeatedly insisted that it cannot become a permanent settlement zone for people trying to reach Europe.

During recent migration talks in Rome involving Libya, Italy, Turkey and Qatar on May 19th the discussion included a proposed joint operations based in Tripoli to support Libyan management of irregular migration.

It is clear that European states want fewer departures and fewer arrivals and to make it possible Libyan authorities need money, equipment, recognition and support while refusing responsibility for permanently hosting the migrants already inside the country. Both sides can agree on interception and border control more easily than they can agree on protection after interception.

The figures show the results of that emphasis, according to the International Organization for Migration more than 741 migrants were intercepted and returned to Libya between May 10th and May 29th.

By May 16th, 6,811 people had been intercepted and returned during 2026 while 822 had been reported dead or missing in the Central Mediterranean crossing route.

A report held in February 2026 by the UN Human Rights Office and UNSMIL found that migrants, asylum seekers and refugees in Libya continue to be victims of systematic violations including killings, torture, sexual violence, trafficking, forced labour and an already condemned arbitrary detention.

The report, which was based on interviews with almost 100 people from Africa, the Middle East and South Asia, described abuse not as a series of exceptional incidents but as a normalised and undeniably profitable system.

That critical assessment raises therefore the central question behind the Ocean Viking arrival: when European policy helps prevent people from leaving Libya or enables their interception and return, what safeguards protect them from the abuses that were already undertaken or stops these abuses from taking place again?

The EU suggests humanitarian programmes supported by “voluntary returns”, evacuations, training and support for the most vulnerable migrants. While these measures matter, and it would be inaccurate to reduce all European engagement to border enforcement alone, these protections operate alongside a wider system whose most visible result is still the return of people to a country the United Nations does not consider safe for disembarkation and therefore is in clear violation of international humanitarian law.

Libyan authorities and armed networks bear direct responsibility for abuse committed in detention centres, trafficking sites and coastal interception operations. Smugglers and criminal intermediaries exploit migrants for profit. But European institutions and member states also carry responsibility for the consequences of a policy they finance, equip and politically reinforce while possessing detailed evidence of the risks.

Italy, which has a particularly important role due to its geographical location, and its bilateral cooperation with Libya has long decided on the general European approach to the Central Mediterranean since the European Court of Human Rights ruled in 2012 that Italy violated the rights of migrants by directly returning them to Libya without individual protection assessments.

More recently European cooperation has increasingly relied on Libyan authorities carrying out interceptions themselves creating as a result a legal and political distance between European liability and Libyan direct responsibility.

That distance may reduce direct legal exposure in some cases but it does not resolve the policy problem. If European states know that people returned to Libya face a serious risk of detention, violence and exploitation, the question is no longer simply who physically intercepted the boat.

EU influence in Libya also reaches far beyond migration, Brussels supports UN mediation, elections, civil society, budget transparency, oil revenue governance, border security and sanctions against human rights violators and political spoilers. The EU says it has provided around €700 million in assistance to Libya over recent years, making it one of the country’s most important external partners.

This is where all this support begins to resemble an imposed influence. Libya has no formal association agreement with the EU and remains divided between competing authorities and armed structures.

In this fractured and divided environment European funding, training and diplomatic recognition can decide which institutions become stronger and which policy priorities receive attention and therefore political advantage.

That does not mean all European involvement is foreign intervention, Libya requires international support in areas including mine clearance, healthcare, institutional reform, humanitarian assistance and electoral preparation but cooperation becomes politically difficult when European objectives, especially reducing arrivals, appear to take priority over the safety of people exposed to abuse inside Libya.

A more sustainable relationship between Libya and the European Union would require an independent monitoring of disembarkation and detention sites with clear suspension mechanisms where supported units are implicated in abuse, as well as stronger humanitarian evacuation and legal pathways, transparent reporting on funding and equipment, together with search and rescue arrangements that do not treat return to Libya as an acceptable result by default.

The 68 people brought to Savona are not an exception to the policy debate as their journey shows what happens when European border management depends on a country that is both a partner in controlling migration and a documented site of danger for migrants.

Europe and Libya may be showing a united front against departures but they are not yet showing a united protection system for the people those policies are meant to manage. Until that changes, EU–Libya cooperation will continue to look less like a solution to the migration crisis than a method of containing it beyond Europe’s shore.

Maghrebi.org, La Stampa plus agencies, European Commission, International Organization for Migration, UN Human Rights Office