Thousands of Sudanese women fleeing civil war in their home country are seeking refuge in Libya, only to face harrowing realities of trafficking, abuse, and exploitation. This article sheds light on the harrowing experiences of five Sudanese families who were lured to Libya with promises of safety and opportunity, but instead found themselves victims of a brutal system of exploitation.
We live in terror,' whispers Layla over the phone so nobody can hear. She fled Sudan with her husband and six children early last year in search of safety and is now in Libya. Like all the Sudan ese women who the BBC spoke to about their experiences of being trafficked to Libya, her name has been changed to protect her identity. In a trembling voice she explains how her home in Omdurman had been raided during Sudan 's violent civil war, which erupted in 2023.
The family went to Egypt first before paying traffickers $350 (£338) to take them to Libya, where they had been told life would be better and they would be able to find jobs in cleaning and hospitality. But as soon as they crossed the border, Layla says the traffickers held them hostage, beat them and demanded more money. The traffickers released them after three days, without saying why. Layla thought her new life in Libya was starting to get better after the familyBut one day her husband left to look for work and never returned. Then her 19-year-old daughter was raped by a man known to the family through Layla's job. 'He told my daughter he would rape her younger sister if she spoke about what he did to her,' Layla says. She speaks in hushed tones fearing the family will be evicted if their landlady hears about the threats. Layla says they are now trapped in Libya: they have no money left to pay traffickers to leave and cannot return to war-torn Sudan. 'We have barely any food,' she says, adding that her children are not in school. 'My son is afraid to leave the house as other children often beat him and insult him for being black. I feel like I'm going to lose my mind.'Many Sudanese refugees fled to Egypt when conflict erupted in April 2023 before then crossing into Libya. Millions have fled Sudan since the war between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) erupted in 2023. The two sides had jointly staged a coup in 2021, but a power struggle between their commanders plunged the country into civil war. More than 12 million people have been forced from their homes, while famine has spread to five areas, with 24.6 million people - about half the population - in urgent need of food aid, experts say.The BBC has spoken to five Sudanese families who initially went to Egypt, where they said they experienced racism and violence, before moving to Libya, believing it would be safer with better job opportunities. We contacted them through a researcher in migration and asylum seeker issues in Libya. Salma tells the BBC she was already living in Cairo, in Egypt, with her husband and three children when the Sudanese civil war broke out, but as huge numbers of refugees entered the country, conditions for migrants there worsened.She describes how, as soon as they crossed the border, they were placed in a warehouse run by traffickers. The men wanted money that had been paid in advance to traffickers on the Egyptian side of the border, but it never arrived. Her family spent nearly two months in the warehouse. At one point, Salma was separated from her husband and taken to a room for women and children. Here, she says she and her two eldest children were subjected to various forms of brutality because they wanted the money. 'Their whips left marks on our bodies. They would beat my daughter and put my son's hands in a lit oven while I was watching.'Salma says her son and daughter were traumatized by the experience and have suffered from incontinence since. She then lowers her voice. 'They would take me to a separate room, the 'rape room' with different men each time,' she says. 'I bear the child of one of them.'She says a doctor then told her it was too late for an abortion, and when her husband found out she was pregnant he abandoned her and the children, leaving them to sleep rough, eating leftovers from rubbish bins and begging in the street. They found refuge on a remote farm in north-western Libya for a while, spending whole days with little to no food. They quenched their thirst by drinking contaminated water from a nearby well. 'It breaks my heart to hear my son saying he is literally dying from hunger,' Salma says over the phone, as the cries of her baby grow louder in the background.Getty ImagesJamila, a Sudanese woman in her mid-40s, also believed reports within the Sudanese community that a better life awaited them in Libya. She fled previous unrest in Sudan's western region of Darfur in 2014 and spent years in Egypt before moving to Libya in late 2023. She says her daughters have been raped repeatedly since then - they were 19 and 20 when it first happened. 'I sent them for a cleaning job while I was ill; they came back at night covered with dirt and blood - four men raped them until one of them fainted,' she tells the BBC. Jamila says she was also raped and held captive for weeks by a man, much younger than her, who had offered her a job cleaning his house. 'He used to call me a 'disgusting black',' Jamila says, adding that after she escaped, her daughters were also attacked by other men. 'They said they would terrorize us because we spoke out about the first attack.'These are just some of the harrowing stories of Sudanese women who have fled to Libya in search of safety but instead found themselves in a living nightmare
SUDAN CIVIL WAR TRAFFICKING LIBYA HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES WOMEN's RIGHTS ASYLUM SEEKERS
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