13 hours ago
How much longer will the EU aid and abet torture?
I recently returned from a mission aboard the Ocean Viking, where I witnessed both the best and the worst of humanity.
Throughout four rescue operations in the central Mediterranean, we brought a total of 563 people to safety — people who, just days earlier, were enduring unimaginable horrors in Libya.
Their stories are not just heartbreaking — they are a damning indictment of a system built on cruelty, one that Europe has knowingly helped sustain.
Once rescued aboard the Ocean Viking, the visible shock and trauma that the migrants have been through are plain to see. Pictures: Fellipe Lopes
This is not new information. For years, Libya has been a waypoint for those fleeing war, poverty, or persecution, hoping to reach Europe. They arrive with dreams of freedom, but most are instead funnelled into a violent underworld of exploitation.
Entire criminal networks profit from the suffering of their victims. What's more appalling is that some of these perpetrators operate within or alongside state-sanctioned forces.
Listening to the survivors, one thing becomes crystal clear: what's happening in Libya is not a lawless fluke — it is an
Armed groups coerce them into calling their families to demand ransom, offering the simplest and cruellest ultimatum: 'No money, no freedom.'
The reality? Libya is not a safe place for people on the move. It is a place where human rights violations are committed in broad daylight: arbitrary detention, murder, rape, and enslavement.
The United Nations has already acknowledged as much in its 2018 report, 'Abuse Behind Bars', which documented systemic violence and slavery.
Still, the world — especially Europe — has done little to intervene.
Once in Libya, migrants are often captured by militias or organised groups who extort them, torture them, and force them to work under conditions of slavery. Furthermore, Libya faces accusations of crimes against humanity committed by security forces and armed militia groups.
The cruelty and brutality endured by thousands of people is staggering. Once rescued aboard the organisation's vessel, the visible shock and trauma etched on the survivors' faces speak volumes about what they've been through.
As a photojournalist, my aim is to build a genuine connection, offering a safe, respectful space where their stories can be shared and heard.
Over seven weeks onboard Ocean Viking, I keep asking myself the same question: how many more will need to die at sea or continue to be tortured in Libya for the European Union to do something about it?
EU money funding brutal system
Instead of working to dismantle this brutal system, the European Union continues to feed it. EU money trains and equips the Libyan Coast Guard, which intercepts migrant boats and returns people to the very conditions they fled.
'Lamunn' (who asked to use a pseudonym) says he tried several times to apply for visas in Germany, the Netherlands, and Italy, but he never received a response. Lamunn said not only was he forced to watch people being raped while in Libya, but he was also the subject of sexual abuse on several occasions.
One afternoon, after three days without drinking water, he asked for some water. However, because he didn't speak the local language, he was beaten. Lamunn used the word trauma to describe that time in Libya: "I would rather die at sea than spend another day in Libya."
Since 2014, more than 31,000 people have drowned in the Mediterranean — the deadliest sea migration route on Earth. Civilian rescue ships like the Ocean Viking are trying to fill the gap left by Europe's retreat from moral responsibility. But rather than support these life-saving missions, many are criminalised, blocked, or smeared.
This system thrives on our silence, and it's time that ended. Europe cannot claim to stand for human rights while directly funding the machinery of human suffering. We have the means to change this — to end the deals that empower abusers, to support safe migration routes, and to treat people fleeing danger with dignity and respect.
Rebecca, SOS Méditerranée medical team leader says: ''Part of my role onboard is not only to provide survivors with medical care but also to support them psychologically, whether it is through basic psychological first aid or through linking them to organisations on land more qualified to do the extensive support that is so often needed.
To see people withdraw into their minds, disassociating with the world around, as the only refuge they have left, is devastating. We do what we can whilst they are with us, if only to show that there is still kindness and a gentle touch.
"Over the past four years working onboard, I have witnessed countless survivors of the brutal conditions that are so prolific in Libya and along the migration pathways. The scars are not only present on the body, with unhealed wounds, extensive scarring, burns and other signs of torture, but also evident in the mind."
According to a United Nations report: 'Abuse Behind Bars: Arbitrary and Unlawful Detention in Libya' published in April 2018, there is systematic violence, slavery and sexual abuses towards migrants in Libya.
"Armed groups in Libya, including those affiliated with the state, hold thousands of people in prolonged arbitrary and unlawful detention, and submit them to torture and other human rights violations and abuses.''
The survivors aboard the Ocean Viking are not statistics. They are mothers, sons, daughters, and dreamers. And the only reason many of them are alive today is because civilians refused to look away.
This all system is designed to profit from people's lives, and its structural chain is located in several countries. In Libya, the authorities turn a blind eye to the systematic abuse of human rights. The European Union continues to fund the Libyan government and its actions to stop migration.
At sea, the EU funds and provides training for the Libyan Coast Guard, which has been accused numerous times of violent practices, obstructing search and rescue operations and bringing people on the move back to Libya to be placed in detention centres, restarting the cycle of abuse.
The question is: how much longer will Europe continue to do just that?
SOS Méditerranée is an international maritime and humanitarian organisation dedicated to saving lives at sea. It operates as a European network, with teams in Germany, France, Italy, and Switzerland. It is currently financing and operating the mission with the Ocean Viking, the search and rescue ship operating in the Central Mediterranean. Since 2016, SOS Méditerranée has assisted a total of 42,052 people at sea.
Fellipe Lopes is communications coordinator at SOS Méditerranée.
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