The Libyan government had “limited effective control” over its own security forces, which led to violations of human rights, according to US State Department’s Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2018.
The report said the different types of human rights violations in Libya are committed by extralegal armed groups, ISIS, criminal gangs, and militias, of which some are affiliated with the government, including arbitrary and extrajudicial executions, forced disappearances, torture, harsh and life threatening conditions in prison and detention facilities.
This comes along the undue restrictions on free expression and the press, widespread corruption, trafficking in persons, criminalization of sexual orientation, and the use of forced labor, according to the report.
After the 2011 uprising, Libya went into a spiral of civil war between the two main power and oil rivals: Faiez Sarraj’s internationally recognized Government of the National Accord (GNA) in the west, and Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA) in the east and part of the south.
Amid the fight for power, the security situation worsened, which is exploited by terrorist and armed groups such as the Chadian opposition, ISIS, and al-Qaeda who threaten, kill and kidnap Libyan civilians and officials, besides human and drug trafficking.
“Between January and October, the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) documented the deaths of more than 177,000 civilians. Shelling injured or killed the largest number of victims,” the report said.
Further, migrant detention centers operated by the Department to Combat Irregular Migration of the GNA’s Ministry of Interior, also suffered from massive overcrowding, extremely poor sanitation conditions, lack of access to medical care, and significant disregard for the protection of the detainees, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
