Our Timeline
OCTOBER 1, 2021
Violent raids on our makeshift buildings in Gargaresh neighborhood of Tripoli by police and militia forces affiliated with the ministry of interior. Over 5,000 children, women, and men were arbitrarily arrested and put in inhumane concentration camps like Al–Mabani, Tariq Al–Sekka and many more.
OCTOBER 2, 2021
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We gathered in front of the UNHCR office. Beginning of the self-organized protest movement which would give birth to us as REFUGEES IN LIBYA.
OCTOBER 8, 2021
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Riots in Al-Mabani detention center followed by a mass escape; open shots, causing deaths and injuries among the detainees. Thousands who escaped joined the sit–in immediately.
OCTOBER 15, 2022
International action day “Stop Italy–Libya Memorandum”. Hundreds of people in 18+ cities across Europe/UK took to the streets in solidarity with REFUGEES IN LIBYA, demanding an end to this illegal and shameful memorandum.
JANUARY 10, 2022
After 100+ days of organized protest outside the UNHCRoffice in Tripoli and 2 days after its closure, the autonomouscamp was attacked, broken up and burnt down by localpolice and armed forces. At least 600 people were taken tothe infamous Ain Zara detention center.
NOVEMBER 4, 2022
Launch of “UNFAIR – The UN Refusal Agency” campaign to amplify the voices of all those who keep getting ignored, punished, and unfairly treated by an agency that is supposed act to protect them.
DECEMBER 9-10, 2022
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“From Tripoli To Geneva – amplifying the Voices of Refugees in Libya!” Sit-in & protest at UNHCR headquarters in Geneva.
JANUARY 10, 2023
#FreeThemAll vigils in front of UNHCR offices in Tripoli,Berlin, Brussels, London and Rome to commemoratethe brutalities of 10 January 2022 and to demand therelease of the 250+ protesters still under arrest.
JUNE 30 + JULY 1, 2023
“From Tripoli To Brussels - amplify the Voices of REFUGEES IN LIBYA!” Counter summit conference and protest inBrussels, the heart of the deadly EU border regime.
AUGUST 22, 2023
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The diplomatic police guarding the UNHCR building attacks the protesters, their tents are burnt, 4 people are shot at and 91 unaccompanied children are left homeless. UNICEF is contacted and informed but watches passively.
SEPTEMBER 9, 2023
400 women are released from Abusalim prison after a long and strong advocacy with diplomatic missions in Geneva. Prior to the advocacy campaign was a video of a dead woman inside Abusalim detention center left to rot next to hundreds of other detainees from sub-saharan africans. The video went viral thanks to our collaboration with newspaper The Guardian and many more like France 2.
NOVEMBER 6, 2023
270 vulnerable people camping at the forest in the vicinity of the UNHCR headquarters of whom 173 were minors are attacked by the security forces and militias affiliated with the ministry of interior. They are taken to Abu-Salim, Ainzara and Tariq Al-Sekka detention centers. These were the same children kicked out in front of the UNHCR building on the 22nd of August 2023.
DECEMBER 16, 2023
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61 people sank off the coast of Zuwara, the people on board are reported to have reached out to ALARMPHONE, who immediately alerted the authorities and the Libyan coast guards but the boat was left in distress until it sank. The LCG allegedly refused to search for the boat. According to the survivors, the boat with around 86 people left the Libyan shores from Zuwara.
2024
Continuous State-to-State human trafficking practiced by the Tunisian and Libyan authorities and deadly desert dumps .
JANUARY 26-27, 2024
“From Tripoli to Bologna—Evacuate Human Rights Defenders from Libya!”
MAY 07, 2024
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14 Human Rights Defenders are evacuated from Libya to Italy
MAY 31 + JUNE 1, 2024
“From Tripoli to Rome - Evacuate Human Rights Defenders from Libya!”
JULY 2024
In Tunisia, over thirty thousand migrants are isolated to the margins of society in the olive groves of Jebiniana, El-Amra and Sfax. They are experiencing a severe health crisis.
JULY 1, 2024
The official founding of Refugees in Libya APS, a Social Promotion Association.
JULY 13, 2024
17 Human Rights Defenders are evacuated from Libya to Italy
AUGUST 2024
In Sfax, cholera and other spreading disease takes toll and a self-organised clinic is built in the camps. David Yambio launches a fundraiser and collects thousands of Euros. over 700 people were treated so far. But the conditions deteriorate into an epidemic until this moment (15.10.2024).
SEPTEMBER 1, 2024
The biggest Libyan mafia boss and human trafficker Abd al-Rahman Milad Al-Bidja is assassinated.
SEPTEMBER 24, 2024
Request to the ICC to investigate Crimes against Humanity in Tunisia: Attacks on political opponents and Black African migrants.
​MAY 29, 2024
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At the Court of Justice of the European Union, Refugees in Libya and Front-LEX filed a legal notice pursuant to Art. 265 TFEU requesting Frontex’s Executive Director, Mr. Hans Leijtens, to partially terminate the Agency’s aerial surveillance activities in the ‘pre-frontier area’ in the Central Mediterranean. Challenging the Complicity of Frontex's Aerial Surveillance Activities in Crimes Against Humanity.
JULY 10 & 11, 2023
221 Human Rights defenders are released from Ainzara after 18 months of torture, thanks to the pressure exerted on the European Parliament in Brussels, the UNHCR and the Libyan authorities.
OCTOBER 10, 2024
With more than 10 vehicles, the Tunisian police raided the camps of km 25 in Sfax, a makeshift which housed over 4,000 migrants. hundreds were displaced and had their belongings burned.
OCTOBER 19-20, 2024
“From Tripoli to Berlin - Evacuate Human Rights Defenders from Libya!”
JULY 24, 2023
A new sit-in consisting of 240 people is established in front of the UNHCR headquarters in Saraj, Tripoli. With women and children predominantly from Sudan, most of them had fled the 15th of April war in Sudan.