Rights Group Urges Libya To Release Cameroonians Held In Arbitrary Detention

The Human Rights Association, HRA, has called on Libyan authorities to immediately release Cameroonian nationals being held in arbitrary detention across Libya’s official and unofficial detention facilities.

In a press release issued from Yaoundé, the organisation said Cameroonians in Libya are facing arbitrary arrest, torture, forced labour, sexual violence and extortion in a detention system controlled in part by militias, trafficking networks and state-affiliated actors.

The HRA said it estimates that about 4,000 Cameroonian nationals are currently present in Libya, with a significant number either held in detention or at immediate risk of abduction by militia groups and criminal trafficking networks.

The group is demanding that Libyan authorities release all Cameroonians held arbitrarily, prosecute those responsible for torture, forced labour, sexual violence and extortion, and grant United Nations agencies and independent monitors unimpeded access to all facilities where African nationals are being held.

“This is not immigration enforcement”

HRA Chairman Saad Kassis-Mohamed said the treatment of Cameroonians in Libya should not be mistaken for immigration control.

“What is happening to Cameroonian nationals in Libya is not immigration enforcement. It is the organised exploitation of people who have nowhere to turn, run by criminal networks that profit from the absence of any rule of law,” he said.

He added that Libya has an obligation under international law to release those held arbitrarily and prosecute those responsible for abuses.

“Libya has an obligation under international law to release those it holds arbitrarily, to prosecute those responsible for torture and forced labour, and to end the extortion system that treats detained human beings as a source of revenue,” Kassis-Mohamed said.

The HRA said Cameroonians and other sub-Saharan Africans are often arrested during raids in residential areas, markets and transit routes, and detained without access to lawyers, courts or any meaningful legal process.

Two Cameroonian accounts cited by HRA

The organisation cited the accounts of two Cameroonian nationals, identified as Emmanuel and Christelle, who it says experienced Libya’s detention system directly.

According to HRA, Emmanuel, a Cameroonian man in his late twenties who had been working in Tripoli, was arrested during a militia raid and detained for eleven weeks in a facility on the outskirts of the city. The group said he was beaten daily during the first two weeks of his detention, denied medical treatment for a wound sustained during his arrest, and released only after his family in Cameroon paid a ransom.

Christelle, a Cameroonian woman, was reportedly intercepted at sea and transferred to a detention centre in western Libya. HRA said she was held in a room with more than 200 women and girls and witnessed repeated sexual violence. According to the group, she also reported that detainees who became seriously ill were removed from the facility and not seen again.

“Emmanuel was arrested walking home from work. Christelle was pulled from a boat. Neither had committed any offence. Both were held for months in conditions that no legal system in the world would sanction,” Kassis-Mohamed said.

MMI News has not independently verified the exact number of Cameroonians cited by HRA or directly spoken to the two survivors named in the statement. However, the allegations made by the organisation are consistent with wider patterns of abuse in Libya that have been documented by United Nations agencies and international human rights bodies.

UN findings mirror wider pattern of abuse

A recent report by the United Nations Support Mission in Libya and the UN Human Rights Office described the abuse of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers in Libya as part of a deeply entrenched system of exploitation. The report said migrants in Libya have faced killings, torture, rape, sexual violence, trafficking, forced labour, extortion and arbitrary detention.

Although the UN findings are not specific to Cameroonians, they support the broader picture described by HRA: that African migrants in Libya are routinely exposed to detention, abuse and exploitation by both official and unofficial actors.

The UN report said migrants, asylum seekers and refugees are often rounded up, abducted, arbitrarily arrested, extorted and transferred to official and clandestine detention centres. It also documented cases in which migrants were forced to work in agriculture, construction and cleaning, while others were sexually exploited or held until their families paid money for their release.

In one account cited in the UN report, a detainee held at Ain Zara said: “If you fail to pay the ransom or refuse to work, you are deprived of food and beaten by the prison guards. This is the routine.”

The UN and humanitarian agencies have repeatedly raised concern that detention in Libya is not limited to official centres. Many migrants are also believed to be held in unofficial prisons, warehouses, farms, private homes and trafficking compounds, making the true scale of the crisis difficult to measure.

Thousands detained, thousands returned to Libya

According to UN-cited figures from IOM and UNHCR, 4,876 people were being held in official detention centres run by Libya’s Directorate for Combating Illegal Migration as of December 31, 2025. The UN said the actual number of people detained is likely to be significantly higher because many are held in unofficial and illegal facilities outside formal monitoring systems.

The same UN report said IOM recorded 27,116 migrants intercepted at sea and returned to Libya in 2025. Rights organisations have long warned that returning migrants to Libya exposes many of them to the same cycle of detention, abuse and extortion they were trying to escape.

For many Cameroonians, Libya remains a major transit point on the dangerous route toward Europe. Some leave Cameroon because of economic hardship, insecurity, unemployment or political uncertainty, only to find themselves trapped in a country where militias and traffickers often treat migrants as commodities.

The HRA said Cameroonian families are also affected, as relatives back home are forced to raise ransom payments to secure the release of loved ones detained in Libya.

Women and girls face particular danger

The allegations involving Christelle also reflect a wider pattern of sexual violence against migrant women and girls in Libya. The UN report documented rape, sexual exploitation, trafficking and forced labour affecting women and girls in detention facilities and trafficking hubs.

Women detained in some facilities reported sexual harassment and said other women were taken away and never returned. Survivors also described trafficking hubs where women and girls were held, abused and forced to contact families for ransom.

For HRA, the abuse of Cameroonian women in Libya is part of a larger system in which migrants are deprived of protection and then exploited because they have no legal recourse.

The organisation is calling for Cameroonian nationals intercepted at sea not to be forced back into detention, but instead referred to appropriate protection mechanisms.

Europe’s role under scrutiny

HRA also criticised European governments that support migration-control arrangements with Libyan authorities, saying they bear part of the responsibility for what African migrants are experiencing.

“Libya’s detention system does not operate in isolation. It is sustained in part by agreements with European governments seeking to prevent migration across the Mediterranean,” Kassis-Mohamed said.

“Funding a system of arbitrary detention, torture, and extortion in order to keep migrants away from European shores is not a migration policy. It is the outsourcing of human rights violations,” he added.

The UN has previously raised concerns about international cooperation with Libyan migration authorities, particularly where funding, equipment or training is provided without adequate human rights safeguards. Human rights organisations have also argued that Europe’s efforts to stop Mediterranean crossings have contributed to migrants being intercepted and returned to unsafe conditions in Libya.

Calls for justice and Cameroon’s responsibility

The HRA’s statement comes at a time when Libya’s detention system is already under international scrutiny. The International Criminal Court has been investigating serious crimes committed in Libya, including alleged crimes against migrants and detainees.

Human Rights Watch recently described one ICC case involving a Libyan detention official as significant because it is the first before the court to address serious international crimes against migrants in Libyan detention centres.

For Cameroonians, however, the question is not only about Libya or Europe. It is also about what Cameroon’s own authorities are doing to trace, protect and assist citizens trapped in detention or trafficking networks abroad.

The HRA is calling for urgent international action, but the claims also raise questions for Cameroon’s Ministry of External Relations and diplomatic missions about consular protection, repatriation and support for affected families.

For the families of Cameroonians detained or missing in Libya, the issue is not abstract. It is about sons and daughters who left home in search of safety or opportunity and ended up in a system where freedom can depend on how quickly relatives can raise ransom money.

The HRA says that system must end.

“The HRA calls on Libya to discharge that obligation without further delay,” Kassis-Mohamed said.

MMI News