While Libya hosts nearly one million refugees on its politically divided territory, two actors - the EU and the UAE - benefit from the human trafficking business established there for over a decade.

Refugees in Libya is an organisation founded by David Yambio, a survivor of human trafficking who spent several years in detention camps in the North African country. They advocate for the hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrants who, attempting to reach European shores, end up being smuggled and forced into slavery.

This happens as part of policy engineering by the European Union, which has been accused by rights groups as "externalising" its borders, funding Libyan institutions to handle the migration issue. At the same time, the United Arab Emirates is deeply embedded in Libya, through which weapons shipments to Sudan pass for the RSF - taking the same route as Sudanese refugees take to escape the genocide.

In a recent finding by State Watch, the EU has been found to extend its training and funding to eastern Libya, the government of which is not officially recognised by the UN.



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