Libya has ceased to function as a mere corridor between Africa and Europe. It is no longer simply a place migrants pass through on their way north. Instead, it has become a terminal zone – an endpoint where journeys collapse, people disappear, and survival is reduced to calculations of ransom, endurance, or chance. What has emerged over the past decade is not accidental cruelty or sporadic abuse, but a structured system that profits from captivity and, increasingly, from death itself.

The discovery in early 2025 of mass graves near Jikharra and Kufra, containing at least 93 migrant bodies, did not expose a hidden atrocity. It confirmed what survivors, humanitarian workers, journalists, and even some Libyan residents have long reported: Libya now hosts killing grounds directly linked to the political management of migration. These sites are not anomalies of lawlessness. They are the end products of a deterrence regime that has displaced Europe’s border enforcement deep into North Africa.

European policymakers often frame migration in abstract terms – “irregular flows,” “external border management,” “capacity building.” Such language creates emotional and moral distance. South of the Mediterranean, however, deterrence has a very tangible form. Since 2017, European governments and EU institutions have funded, trained, and equipped Libyan forces to intercept migrants before they reach European waters. The result has been a dramatic rise in sea interceptions.

Between 2017 and 2024, Libyan forces intercepted and forcibly returned more than 130,000 people attempting to cross the central Mediterranean. These operations are frequently labeled “rescues,” yet the outcome is almost always forced return to detention, extortion, or disappearance. In practice, interception has become a revolving door into captivity.

The core moral hazard is structural. Europe pays to stop movement, not to ensure protection. In a fragmented country like Libya, armed groups respond rationally to these incentives. Migrants become commodities whose value can be extracted repeatedly. Detention produces ransom opportunities. Ransom produces cash. Cash sustains militias and patronage networks. When payment fails,........

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