David Yambio is a community advocate, human rights defender, and lead investigator on state-to-state human trafficking and crimes against migrants in North Africa and Europe. He is the Executive Director and cofounder of Refugees in Libya, a refugee-led organisation based in Libya and Europe that documents abuses, challenges impunity, and advocates for justice, dignity, protection, and freedom of movement for people on the move.

David experienced displacement early in life and grew up amid conflict and instability. He was forcibly recruited as a child and later lived through multiple armed conflicts across the African continent. After fleeing his country, he undertook a perilous journey across several African states, during which he was detained, tortured, exploited, and enslaved in Libya. These experiences shaped both his political consciousness and his commitment to collective struggle.

In Libya, David became involved in refugee-led organising against systematic abuses committed against refugees and migrants. In 2021, he co-founded Refugees in Libya following prolonged refugee-led protests demanding protection, recognition, accountability, evacuation, and an end to the violence faced by refugees trapped in Libya.

Since then, Refugees in Libya has become a central platform for exposing crimes committed against refugees and migrants across Libya, Tunisia, Niger, and along the Central Mediterranean route, including abuses linked to European border externalisation policies. The organisation combines survivor-led documentation, advocacy, strategic litigation support, investigations, and political organising to challenge systems of violence and impunity.

David has led and coordinated international advocacy and accountability campaigns in Geneva, Brussels, Rome, and other European cities, engaging institutions such as UNHCR, the European Union, international courts, and regional mechanisms. He is also a co-author of The Book of Shame, a collective documentation project exposing crimes committed against refugees and migrants in North Africa and the failures of international protection systems.

His work focuses on accountability, survivor-led documentation, strategic litigation support, policy advocacy, investigations, and community organising concerning trafficking, detention, torture, enforced disappearances, and crimes committed against refugees and migrants.

David continues to work across Africa and Europe alongside survivors, legal practitioners, journalists, students, researchers, and social movements to confront impunity, defend freedom of movement, and advance a vision of justice rooted in dignity, political agency, and collective liberation.