Twenty-four year-old Mohammad Ziyab is one of 200,000 Syrian refugees in Libya according to UNCHR estimates. Most of them enter the country without visas and are treated as illegal migrants, detained and handed over to competent bodies only to be deported again.
Ziyab’s account of reaching Libya traces a long and tragic journey that has come to symbolize the peril and uncertainty faced by Syrians fleeing a brutal war.
Twenty-four year-old Mohammad Ziyab is one of 200,000 Syrian refugees in Libya according to UNCHR estimates. Most of them enter the country without visas and are treated as illegal migrants, detained and handed over to competent bodies only to be deported again.
Ziyab’s account of reaching Libya traces a long and tragic journey that has come to symbolize the peril and uncertainty faced by Syrians fleeing a brutal war.
“We came to Libya to work after all doors closed,” said Ziyab eight months ago as he lay in a hospital bed in Sabha Central Hospital after being injured in a car accident as he entered Libya.
Ziyab used to work with his friend Mohammad Alkhaleel in their own small carpentry workshop in Mleiha in Damascus Suburbs. Then life took a drastic change when the revolution broke out in late 2010. As the war dragged on they became jobless and trapped amongst military attacks and battles, in a remote area unreached by aid.
Ziyab and Alkhaleel, like many other Syrians, set their hopes on Libya since it is an enemy of the Syrian regime and has hosted many Syrians in its territories. So the friends collected as much money as they could, with plans to open up a carpentry workshop once they arrived. But they were met with many obstacles before their journey even began.
“Getting a visa to enter Libya was a problem,” Ziyab said. “The Libyan government does not have an embassy in Syria for us to apply for a visa. We also heard that getting a visa in Libya had recently become so hard and that entering Libya through Egypt was difficult so we decided to enter through Sudan.”
The toughest part
First they went to Lebanon and then to Turkey and from Istanbul they flew to Khartoum where the toughest part of their journey started.
“A Sudanese trafficker was waiting for us at the airport. He took us to his home and told us that the journey could take four days and nights non-stop. We paid the expenses and set out the following day.”
After four days of non-stop travel across the desert with only one stop in a small remote village to get fuel for the car, Ziyab and 13 other Syrian migrants entered Libyan territories.
“The staff at the first border point in Libya treated us normally and stamped our passports easily, which surprised us. We drove on in the desert and after a whole day of travel we stopped at another security checkpoint,” Ziyab says.
Blackmail and detention
The treatment of the military staff at the second security point was quite different according to Ziyab. They forced the migrants out of the car and insulted the Sudanese driver and then asked them for money in order to let them continue their journey. When the Syrians refused to give up their savings, the military staff allegedly detained them for 20 days with no food, apart from some dates and water every once in a while.
“In the cold dreary desert, we had a good chance of escaping. But how could we run away in the desert with no guide?” Ziyab said.
Eventually, the migrants gave in to the military staff who, according to Ziyab, took all of their money and allowed them to continue their journey with their Sudanese driver. They continued travelling—hungry and cold—for two more days across the desert, but ended up having a car accident—which started another journey through Libyan prisons and hospitals.
Injured and in limbo
“The car flipped over on sand ripples in the Libyan desert and I lost consciousness. When I woke up, I found myself in the hospital totally naked. I did not know what happened to my friends, how I got to Sabha Hospital or where my documents and passport were,” Ziyab said.
According to the doctor in charge of his case, Ziyab suffered from trauma to his spleen and paralysis on his left side.
Officials at the hospital said they did not have the suitable treatment for Ziyab or his friend Alkhaleel. They were only able to give them pain killers. Transfer to a hospital in Tripoli, without official permission from the illegal immigration department, officials said, was impossible.
Assumed terrorists?
The others travelling with Ziyab had been detained at a shelter from the illegal immigration department. The director of the shelter, Khaled Alazhari, explained that the accident took place in the Alsareer area in southeastern Libya.
Alazhari explained that “they were arrested” after two of them passed away and two others were injured. They were all taken to Sabha where wounded people were transferred to a medical center while the others were taken to a shelter for illegal migrants.
Alazhari said the border point where their passports had been stamped was not recognized by the state, rendering them meaningless. He added that they would not be handed over to a human rights organization because they were “Members of Al-Qaeda sent by the Assad regime to stage terrorist bombings in Libya.”
General Masoud Alrakobi, director of the general directorate of illegal immigration, however, denied knowledge of the situation of the Syrians detained in Sabha and denounced their accusation of being Al-Qaeda members without evidence. He expressed willingness to hand them over to UNHCR.
Caught in the cross fire
The detainees were deported from Sabha airport to Tripoli eight months later. However, the deportation of the wounded coincided with the eruption of clashes in Sabha and the closure of its airport on 1 September 2013.
On the first day of clashes, the hospital buildings were completely deserted with no visitors, patients, doctors or paramedics. Only Ziyab and Alkhaleel were there, terrified by the sounds of gunfire and the shells that hit the hospital.
On the following day, Syrians living in the area bravely entered the hospital to rescue the two wounded men –still untreated- and offered them shelter in their homes.
Open camps
This stance towards Syrian refugees in Libya pushes most of them to venture into crossing the sea to Europe. UNHCR documented the passage of more than 7,000 Syrians from Syria to Europe by sea. This figure is likely to increase causing more human trafficking crimes already widely spread in border and coastal areas.
UNCHR’s Mohammad Akila said and the Libyan government refuses to open camps for Syrians claiming the situation in Syria may drag on for a long time and the camps would remain open.
Akila expressed surprise at this attitude by the Libyan government as opening camps would relieve them from responsibility of the refugees as they would be taken care of by local and international relief organizations instead.
Ziyab is now in Banghazi receiving medical and psychological treatment after the UNHCR managed to take him and his friends from Sabha to Tripoli. His dreams of work and decent life in Libya have vanished. “All I want to do is return to Syria and die in my homeland.”
