More than 1,800 migrants of various nationalities have died this year crossing the central Mediterranean to Europe, according to figures from the International Organization for Migration.
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Migrants of African descent trying to flee to Europe are crammed into a small boat, as the Tunisian coast guard prepares to transfer them to their ship, at sea between Tunisia and Italy, on August 10 2023. — AFP
About 90,000 other people have arrived in Italy, according to the UN refugee agency, most of them having embarked from Libya or Tunisia.
For desperate Syrians, a WhatsApp message saying “I want to go to Europe” may be enough to begin a perilous journey to Libya and then across the Mediterranean.
Twelve years into the conflict when President Bashar al-Assad cracked down on peaceful pro-democracy protests, Syrians are still trying to escape a war that has killed more than 500,000 people, displaced millions and attracted foreign powers and global jihadists.
At least 141 Syrians were among the 750 migrants believed to have been on board a trawler that sailed from Libya and sank off Greece in June, relatives and activists told AFP. It is feared that most of the passengers may have drowned.
AFP interviewed Syrian smugglers and migrants on their journey to Libya, a migration hub notorious for rights abuses, and then across the central Mediterranean, the world’s deadliest migrant route.
Almost everyone requested anonymity, fearing reprisals.
“We finalize everything over the phone,” said a smuggler in Daraa province, southern Syria.
Migrants of African origin trying to flee to Europe are transferred from a small boat belonging to the Tunisian coast guard to a larger ship, at sea between Tunisia and Italy, on August 10, 2023. – AFP
“We ask for a copy of their passport and tell them where to deposit the money. We don’t need to see anyone in person,” he told AFP on WhatsApp.
Deraa, the cradle of the Syrian uprising, returned to regime control in 2018.
The country has since been plagued by killings, clashes and dire living conditions, all of which are fueling an exodus, activists say.
“The first year we started, we only sent one group. Today, we send a batch every month” to Libya, explained the smuggler.
“People are selling their homes and leaving.”
Libya descended into chaos after a NATO-backed uprising toppled and killed dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, the same year the war in Syria began.
The North African country is divided between a UN-recognized government in the west and another in the east backed by military strongman Khalifa Haftar, who has ties to Damascus.
Syrians deposit the money – more than $6,000 per person – with a third party, often a bureau de change that takes a commission.
The smuggler declined to disclose his share, but said he was paid once the migrants reached Italy. His partner in eastern Libya organizes the boat trip.
A travel agent in Deraa told an AFP correspondent posing as a migrant that a package cost $6,500.
Migrants of African origin trying to flee to Europe disembark in Sfax from a ship belonging to the Tunisian coast guard, after being intercepted by them at sea on August 10, 2023. – AFP
This included air ticket, entry document to eastern Libya, airport pick up, transportation, accommodation, boat trip to Italy and a life jacket , indicates a WhatsApp message.
Migrants stay “in a hotel or furnished apartment”, he adds, but Syrians say these promises are rarely kept.
They told AFP of overcrowded and disease-ridden warehouses, where armed guards subjected migrants to violence and extortion.
Omar, 23, from Daraa province, borrowed $8,000 to smuggle to Libya and then Italy this year, saying he was desperate to leave “a country with no future”.
Currently in Germany, he said he spent two weeks locked in a hangar near the coast in eastern Libya with around 200 other people.
“We were abused, shouted at, humiliated and beaten,” added Omar, who said the guards only gave them meager portions of rice, bread and cheese to eat.
On the day of departure, “about 20 armed men forced us to run” from the hangar to the sea, “hitting us with the backs of their guns”, he said.
“When we finally reached the shores, I was exhausted. I couldn’t believe I was there.”
In a part of northern Syria controlled by Ankara-backed rebel groups, a fighter recruiter said he also smuggled migrants to Libya classifying them as pro-Turkish mercenaries.
Turkey supports the Tripoli administration in western Libya.
Ankara has largely shut down a once busy route to Europe via Turkey.
“Every six months, we take advantage of the rotation of fighters to send people with them”, explains the recruiter to AFP.
Syrians from poor and opposition-controlled northern provinces of Idlib and Aleppo, “especially those living in displacement camps, contact us,” the recruiter said.
Classified as “combatants”, Syrian migrants are entitled to a “salary” paid by the Turks of around $2,500, the recruiter said.
The armed group pockets $1,300, the recruiter takes the rest and the migrants get a free flight to Libya, he said.
The Syrians first go to the border camps of pro-Ankara fighters before crossing Turkey and flying to Tripoli, the Libyan capital.
They spend two weeks in Syrian militia camps in western Libya before being introduced to smugglers, who charge around $2,000 for the boat trip to Italy, he added.
For those living in Syria, under regime control, traveling to Libya can involve criss-crossing the Middle East on various airlines and sometimes by land – “to cover our tracks,” the smuggler told Deraa.
AFP spotted a group ticket of around 20 Syrian migrants who traveled to neighboring Lebanon, then flew from Beirut to a Gulf state, then to Egypt, before finally landing in Benghazi , in eastern Libya.
Direct flights are also available from Damascus to Benghazi with Syrian private carrier Cham Wings.
The European Union blacklisted Cham Wings in 2021 for its alleged role in irregular migration to Europe via Belarus, lifting the measures in July last year.
Several Syrians told AFP that on their flights to Benghazi, direct or not, there were many migrants bound for Europe.
Spokesman Osama Satea said Cham Wings only carried travelers with valid Libyan entry documents, highlighting the presence of a sizable Syrian diaspora in that country.
He told AFP that the airline is not responsible for determining whether passengers are traveling for work or for other reasons, but “it certainly does not fly to Libya to contribute to attempts at illicit trafficking or migration”.
Syrians arriving in Benghazi need security clearance from eastern authorities to enter.
But the Daraa smuggler told AFP that was not a problem: “In Libya, as in Syria, paying security officials can solve everything.”
“We have a guy in the security appliance that gets permissions with a click,” he said.
The migrants told AFP that an associate of the smuggler – sometimes a security guard – escorted them out of Benghazi’s Benina airport.
A security clearance seen by AFP bore the logo of Haftar’s forces and listed the names and passport numbers of more than 80 Syrians bound for Europe.
Once in Libya, Syrians can wait weeks or even months for the most perilous part of the journey.
More than 1,800 migrants of various nationalities have died this year crossing the central Mediterranean to Europe, according to figures from the International Organization for Migration.
About 90,000 other people have arrived in Italy, according to the UN refugee agency, most of them having embarked from Libya or Tunisia.
A 23-year-old man from Kobani, a Kurdish town in northern Syria, was among around 100 survivors of the June shipwreck off the coast of Greece.
He paid over $6,000 for a trip that nearly cost him his life.
“There was terror,” he said.
Six people died in desperate fights for food and water, and “on the fifth day we started drinking sea water”.
“I wanted to leave the war behind me, live my life and help my family,” he said from Europe, warning others against the trip.
“I was promised decent accommodation and a safe trawler, but I got nothing.”
