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23-01-2025
Warning: This story contains details some may find distressing.
KHARTOUM/ TRIPOLI: “We live in terror,” whispers Layla over the phone so nobody can hear. She fled Sudan with her husband and six children early last year in search of safety and is now in Libya.
Like all the Sudanese women who the BBC spoke to about their experiences of being trafficked to Libya, her name has been changed to protect her identity.
In a trembling voice she explains how her home in Omdurman had been raided during Sudan’s violent civil war, which erupted in 2023.
The family went to Egypt first before paying traffickers $350 (£338) to take them to Libya, where they had been told life would be better and they would be able to find jobs in cleaning and hospitality but as soon as they crossed the border, Layla says the traffickers held them hostage, beat them and demanded more money.
“My son needed medical attention after he was hit repeatedly in the face,” she tells the BBC.
The traffickers released them after three days, without saying why. Layla thought her new life in Libya was starting to get better after the family managed to travel west and she rented a room and started working but one day her husband left to look for work and never returned. Then her 19-year-old daughter was raped by a man known to the family through Layla’s job.
“He told my daughter he would rape her younger sister if she spoke about what he did to her,” Layla says.
She speaks in hushed tones fearing the family will be evicted if their landlady hears about the threats.
Layla says they are now trapped in Libya: they have no money left to pay traffickers to leave and cannot return to war-torn Sudan.
“We have barely any food,” she says, adding that her children are not in school. “My son is afraid to leave the house as other children often beat him and insult him for being black. I feel like I’m going to lose my mind.”
Millions have fled Sudan since the war between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) erupted in 2023. The two sides had jointly staged a coup in 2021, but a power struggle between their commanders plunged the country into civil war. More than 12 million people have been forced from their homes, while famine has spread to five areas, with 24.6 million people about half the population in urgent need of food aid, experts say.
The UN refugee agency says more than 210,000 Sudanese refugees are now in Libya.
The BBC has spoken to five Sudanese families who initially went to Egypt, where they said they experienced racism and violence, before moving to Libya, believing it would be safer with better job opportunities. We contacted them through a researcher in migration and asylum seeker issues in Libya.
Salma tells the BBC she was already living in Cairo, in Egypt, with her husband and three children when the Sudanese civil war broke out, but as huge numbers of refugees entered the country, conditions for migrants there worsened.
They decided to move to Libya, but what was awaiting them there was a “living hell”, Salma says.
She describes how, as soon as they crossed the border, they were placed in a warehouse run by traffickers. The men wanted money that had been paid in advance to traffickers on the Egyptian side of the border, but it never arrived.
Her family spent nearly two months in the warehouse. (BBC)
