TITLE:
HUMAN SMUGGLING IN LIBYAN CHAOS
A report of Ruth Vandewalle, Alex Koning and Aart Zeeman
00:00:06 We need these people.
TRANSLATION Muhammad:
00:00:09 We went inside with body armor and heavy weapons as we had information that Africans were carrying weapons.
00:00:19 Where are you from?
00:00:20 -Somalia
00:00:26 400 Somalians
00:00:29 Over there is the sleeping area and here they were discovered.
TRANSLATION Somali boy:
00:00:37 When the police came, I was terrified. I knew they’d throw me in jail because what I am doing is wrong. And it seems like my dream is ruined.
00:01:03 Libya: The final step towards the European dream for hundreds of thousands of refugees.
TRANSLATION Police officer:
00:01:07 Up there at the window they have loosened the bars and they escaped.
00:01:18 Here on the Libyan coast refugees step into tiny boats for a large fee to risk the crossing. Europe is considering military steps to intercept the smugglers. But how realistic is this plan?
NAME:
Jamal Zubia,
Spokesman government Libya Dawn
TRANSLATION:
00:01:38 The European plan to bomb smuggling boats is insane, I'm sorry to say it.
NAME:
Ibrahim
Captain smuggling boat
TRANSLATION Captain Ibrahim:
00:01:51 The coast guard intercepted us. They said: “What you do is completely wrong. You take a big risk. Many people have already drowned here.”
00:02:05 This is a captain of an intercepted smuggling ship, being held inside a Libyan prison.
TRANSLATION Captain Ibrahim:
00:02:11 They asked us: “who is going to drive the boat”? If you drive the boat you don’t have to pay. And we’ll give you a phone.”
00:02:23 It’s a dangerous cat-and-mouse game in the political chaos of Libya.
TRANSLATION Muhammad:
00:02:32 Let's go to the farm.
00:02:41 Combined units of police and army are on the roads, hunting down illegal immigrants.
NAME:
Muhammad Al Khoji
Head of Unit Illegal Immigration
TRANSLATION Muhammad:
00:02:50 We are a special unit against illegal immigration in Tripoli. We carry the fight against the people who come to Libya to leave for Europe.
00:03:02 Libyan capital Tripoli and its surrounding areas are under the control of a government which is not recognized by Europe. The growing stream of boat refugees come from this area. In the past few days, a record number of 5,000 refugees have made the crossing.
TRANSLATION Mohammed:
00:03:19 Since last year, there has been no cooperation with the EU. That is the reason why refugees are coming in such large numbers. They know that Europe and Libya no longer coordinate their hunt for migrants.
TRANSLATION:
00:03:35 Come outside.
IMAGE:
Refugees walking outside
00:03:37 The authorities do everything in their power to prevent refugees from risking their lives stepping onto boats headed for Italy. Meanwhile, thousands of intercepted refugees are spread throughout Libya, stuck in camps.
TRANSLATION:
00:03:51 Come over here. Come outside. Come on.
NAME:
Jamal Zubia,
Spokesman government Libya Dawn
TRANSLATION:
00:03:56 Every day we feed thousands and thousands of people, for the sake of Europe. As we think we are not some cruel state, we take responsibility despite the lack of resources for it. But we do what we can.
00:04:20 - And for you it would be easier to just let them go to Europe?
00:04:23 Definitely yes, that's cheaper and better for us.
00:04:30 The Libyan coast is hiding tens of thousands of refugees waiting for the right moment to cross over.
00:04:38 The well-organized smugglers keep them more or less trapped in secret hideouts.
TRANSLATION:
00:04:47 These people are all from Somalia? And they are very young people, huh?
00:04:53 - Yes, very young people.
AT WOMEN:
00:04:55 Are you aware that it is dangerous to cross the sea?
00:04:58 - All we want is to work there to help our family.
00:05:01 But it is dangerous. Today again more people are drowning.
TRANSLATION Muhammad:
00:05:07 This place was specifically built to house illegal immigrants. A temporary place with rapid turnover. They come here, stay for a while and then leave quickly. Once they have let people go, new people are being brought in.
00:05:30 Two weeks ago, the special unit discovered this farm where the smugglers kept hundreds of people hidden away. They were to be transferred to Europe the next day.
TRANSLATION Muhammad:
00:05:41 We found a diary with a schedule saying which group is leaving at what date. They are very well organized.
TRANSLATION Captain Ibrahim:
00:05:57 Anyone can die at any time.
00:06:00 The smugglers make sure to run as little risk to themselves as possible.
NAME:
Ibrahim
Captian smuggling boat
TRANSLATION Captain Ibrahim:
00:06:06 We are new here, but there are those who have been in Libya for a long time. They arrange everything here.
00:06:15 They even let the rickety boats be controlled by the refugees themselves, no matter how life threatening it is.
TRANSLATION Captain Ibrahim:
00:06:21 The boats are in a very bad state, absolutely not safe. And you’re given such a worthless life jacket, it’s like a raincoat you need to blow up yourself. If you get in the water with this and you cannot swim, you drown immediately.
00:06:49 So the refugees are at the mercy of unscrupulous traders looking for a better future for their families in areas ravaged by war.
Refugee ENGLISH:
00:06:58 I still want to go to Europe because it is the only way to help my family. They are all in a refugee camp in Ethiopia. My mother has nothing. My father was killed. I was in a camp with six brothers and have come here through Sudan in search of a better life.
NAME:
Jamal Zubia,
Spokesman government Libya Dawn
TRANSLATION:
00:07:23 Europe does support Italy and they just watch those crazy Libyans tackle the problem. We do anything we can but we get nothing in return.
00:07:36 The Libyan authorities in this area are now starting to wonder how long they still need to continue trying to control the refugees who have only one dream: Europe.
TRANSLATION:
00:07:46 By keeping them over here, we actually create our own enemies. They feel as if we have destroyed their dream. And if you destroy someone's dream, he will seek opportunities to punish you for it. You've ruined his future.
00:08:07 How many are still there? Almost finished?
NAME:
Muhammad Al Khoji
Head of Unit Illegal Immigration
TRANSLATION:
00:08:14 In this building they had locked the people away, and we have broken doors and walls to get inside.
It's mafia, mafia.
00:08:23 We have found all kinds of ultra-modern equipment here that is nowhere to be found in Libya. Satellite phones with which they can maintain contact abroad. Items that are prohibited here in Libya, and which are absolutely unavailable here.
00:08:42 The captain of the smuggling boat gets this navigation and communication equipment when he goes out to sea with the boat refugees.
TRANSLATION Captain Ibrahim:
00:08:49 If it gets dangerous you should call the Italians to say you are at sea, so they can come and rescue you. They give us a phone for that purpose.
00:09:02 However, the captain never got this Italian number from the smuggler. The captain and his passengers hid on the coast for two days until the weather was good enough to make the crossing.
TRANSLATION Captain Ibrahim:
00:09:13 They drove us to the coast by trucks with 115 people. There we slept one night. The next day in the morning we left for Italy by boat.
00:09:27 Europe wants to tackle the large number of refugees by attacking the smuggling boats on the Libyan coast. A final decision on this is to be expected this month. The Libyan government thinks this is a crazy plan.
NAME:
Jamal Zubia,
Spokesman government Libya Dawn
TRANSLATION Jamal Zubia:
00:09:40 It's crazy because it is not a real solution. It is just for them to be able to say: “Look, we really want to do something.”
00:09:53 The ships that are used are not even recognizable as smuggling boats so how will they identify which boats are targets?
TRANSLATION Jamal Zubia:
00:10:00 There is no definite infrastructure at all, these are all small fishing boats.
00:10:06 - Like this one here?
00:10:07 Yeah, and you really cannot tell from the outside whether such a boat is used for fishing or smuggling people.
00:10:15 The chaos in Libya has only grown since Gaddafi was expelled with the support of Western countries. The country now has two governments fighting each other. Aside from that, IS rebels have captured areas elsewhere in the country. The Tripoli government predicts that IS will profit from attacks on boats.
TRANSLATION Jamal Zubia:
00:10:34 Look at all those boats. There are lots of boats. When someone only owns two or three boats and uses them for fishing, would you steal his income by destroying his boats? Then you force him to become your enemy and you will give him a reason to have sympathy for IS. IS will try to convince people to come with them and to fight against the Europeans.
TRANSLATION:
00:11:03 Turn around. Then more people can enter.
NAME
General Abdelbaset Marwan
Government Libya Dawn
TRANSLATION General:
00:11:14 We have been arresting 400 people here. That's a lot. You have to feed them all. Sometimes you wonder: wouldn’t it be better to let them go. That's perhaps the best solution to our problem.
00:11:32 Unilateral attacks from Europe do not really seem to be a good approach to stop the flow of refugees. But what can be done instead? Military leaders in Libya call for cooperated action against smuggling - as it happened before the revolution.
TRANSLATION General:
00:11:48 Look, we just do not have the tools for our border guards or the coast guard. We can only manage this with international cooperation. Then we can exchange information to better protect our borders and coast.
00:12:10 The Libyan coast guard is in desperate need of EU support to detect smuggling boats.
For example, the coast guard hasn’t got night vision binoculars because the EU prohibits the supply of them. The men of the coast guard here are mainly dependent on rudimentary methods.
TRANSLATION Salah (man in boat):
00:12:28 If there’s a full moon we see everything and no one can escape, but if there is no moon, we see nothing and then we only can use our ears. If we switch off the engine, you can hear that boat over there. Can you hear it? That’s how we do it. Using our ears.
00:12:56 It is a miracle that despite its lack of resources the Tripoli coast guard still manages to regularly intercept smugglers.
NAME:
Salah
Coast guard Tripoli
TRANSLATION Salah:
00:13:03 We don’t earn money, we pay for everything ourselves. We even pay for the food for the Africans ourselves. There are so many of them, I have never seen so many refugees in all these years.
00:13:27 This is the heart of the problem: The immense amount of refugees flooding Libya since the collapse of the central authority.
NAME:
Jamal Zubia
Spokesman government Libya Dawn
TRANSLATION:
00:13:38 Maybe one day we will stop what we’re doing now and help those Africans to go. That would be cheaper. We have too many boats here and we could give them the chance to go cross the sea. Then a really big flood of refugees will go to Europe. If you don’t want to sit with me and try to solve the problem, we can’t keep doing our best for Europe anymore.
00:14:12 -So you invite Europe to cooperate with you?
00:14:15 Yes, we have asked them time and time again. We don’t want to wait for the day in which we can’t help them anymore. That would be disastrous: for you, for us and of course for them.
00:14:36 One thing becomes clear from meeting some of the desperate refugees here. No matter how many people drown in the sea each day, more will keep coming.
TRANSLATION:
00:14:45 We all know. We can see it on tv. Many people drown in the Mediterranean Sea. But we can’t go back. We don’t have a life. We want a life and take the risk. Our chance is fifty fifty. Do or die.
Length: 15’10”
Music: Cosmic Orchestra