Why are we here?

Armed Conflict | Medical Assistance | Mental Health


In 2018, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) provided medical assistance to migrants and refugees arbitrarily held in detention centres nominally under the control of the Ministry of the Interior.

Many of our patients in the centres were extremely vulnerable people, for example, unaccompanied children, lactating mothers and their newborns, and survivors of human trafficking who had been held captive for prolonged periods, deprived of food, tortured and exposed to extreme violence, including the killing of family members.

Most of the medical issues we treated were related to or aggravated by the dire conditions inside the centres, with overcrowding, inadequate food and drinking water, and insufficient latrines facilitating the spread of acute respiratory tract infections, tuberculosis, diarrhoeal diseases and skin diseases such as scabies.


MSF repeatedly denounced this unacceptable situation deliberately reinforced by European policymakers, but we saw little positive progress.


Libya International Activity Report



We carried out about 140 first aid consultations at disembarkation points in 2018. We continued to work in Bani Walid, reportedly a major hub for smugglers and traffickers, in order to assist people who had been held captive by criminal networks in the area but had managed to escape or been released.

We conducted 810 medical consultations with survivors and referred a dozen people for secondary healthcare in Misrata or Tripoli.

The majority of migrants and refugees live outside detention centres or are held in clandestine places of captivity, and like the local communities in Libya, they are affected by the deterioration in public health facilities, which face severe shortages of medicines and staff.



No. staff in 2018: 101 | Expenditure in 2018: €9.5 million | Year MSF first worked in the country: 2011 | msf.org/libya