Sudan women who escaped the civil war faced rape and abuse in Libya

“We live in fear,” Laila whispered on the phone, so no one could hear it. At the beginning of last year, she and her husband and six children fled to Sudan for safety, and she was currently in Libya.

Like all Sudan women interviewed by the BBC, telling their experiences that they were traded to Libya, and her name had been changed to protect her.

Warning: This story contains some painful details.

She explained how she was attacked during the Sudan violent civil war that broke out in Enshman’s home in Enshmann in Enshmann.

The family went to Egypt first, and then paid $ 350 (£ 338) to the traffickers to bring them to Libya. They were told that the life there would be better, and they would be able to find the work of cleaning and hotel industry.

But Laila said that as soon as they crossed the border, the traffickers deducted them as hostages, beat them, and asked for more money.

She told Broadcasting Corporation: “My son’s face was hit many times and needed to seek medical treatment.”

Three days later, the traffickers released them, but did not explain the reason. Laila believes that after reuniting with her family, her new life in Libya has begun to become better Manic traveling west She rented a room and started working.

But one day, her husband went out to find a job and never returned. Subsequently, her 19 -year -old daughter was raped by a man he knew through Leila.

“He told my daughter that if her sister said what he did to her, he would rape her,” Lela said.

She whispered, worried that the family would be expelled if the female landlord heard the threat.

Laila said that they are now trapped in Libya: they have no money to pay for traffickers to leave, nor can they return to the sultan of war.

“We have almost no food,” she said, and added that her children were not going to school. “My son dare not leave home, because other children often beat him and insult him as black. I think I am going crazy.”

Since the outbreak of the military and quasi -military rapid support forces (RSF) in 2023, millions of people have fled Sudan. The two sides jointly launched a coup in 2021, but the power struggle between the commanders caused the country to fall into a civil war.

Experts said that more than 12 million people were forced to leave their homes, and the famine had spread to 5 regions, and 24.6 million people (about half of the total population) urgently needed food assistance.

The United Nations refugee agencies said more than 22,000 Sudan refugees are currently in Libya.

The Broadcasting Corporation interviewed five Sudan families who had first traveled to Egypt. They said that they had experienced racism and violence there, and then moved to Libya. I believe it will be safer and have better job opportunities. We contacted them through Libyan immigrants and researchers seeking asylum issues.

Salma told Broadcasting Corporation that when the Sudan civil war broke out, she had lived in Cairo, Egypt with her husband and three children, but as a large number of refugees entered the country, the immigration situation worsened.

Salma said they decided to move to Libya, but they were waiting for them to “hell on earth.”

She described the situation where they were placed in the warehouse operated by traffickers as soon as they crossed the border. These people want to pay the money to the border Egyptian traffickers in advance, but the money has never arrived.

Her family stayed in the warehouse for nearly two months. Once, Salma was separated from her husband and was taken to a room of a woman and children. She said that here, she and her two largest children suffered various forms of violence because they wanted money.

“Their whip left a trace on us. They would beat my daughter and put my son’s hand in the ignited oven, and I watched it.

“Sometimes I hope we all die together. I can’t think of other way out.”

Salma said her son and daughter were traumatized for this experience and have since suffered from urinary incontinence. Then she lowered her voice.

“They will bring me to a separate room, ‘rape room’, and there are different men every time,” she said. “I am one of their children.”

In the end, she raised some money through a friend in Egypt, and the traffickers released her family.

She said that the doctor told her that it was too late to abortion now. When her husband found that she was pregnant, he abandoned her and the children, let them sleep on the street, eat leftovers in the trash can, and Begging.

Their remote farm in northwestern Libya had evacuated for a while, with almost no food all day. They drank a bit of polluted water nearby to quench their thirst.

Salma said on the phone: “Hearing my (big) son said he was about to starve to death, my heart was broken.” The baby’s crying in the background music became louder and louder.

“He is too hungry,” she said, “but I have nothing, and even the milk in my chest does not have enough milk to feed him.”

Gamila, a Sudan woman in her 40s, also believed in the Sudan community report, saying that Libya was waiting for their better life.

In 2014, she fled the riots in Darfur, western Sudan, spent several years in Egypt, and moved to Libya at the end of 2023. She said that since then, her two daughters have been raped many times -they were 19 years old and 20 years old when the rape occurred for the first time.

“I sent them to do cleaning work during my illness; when they returned at night, they were all dirt and blood -four men raped them until one of them fainted,” she told Broadcasting Corporation.

Jamira said that she was raped and imprisoned by a man much younger than her. The man provided her with a job of cleaning the house.

“He used to call me ‘disgusting black”. He raped me and said,’ This is the purpose of a woman’s life, ‘”she recalled.

“Even the children here are very mean. They treat us as a beast and a wizard. They insulting us as blacks and Africans. Are they not Africans themselves?” Jamira said.

When her daughters were raped for the first time, Jamira sent them to the hospital and reported the case to the police. But when the police officer realized that they were refugees, Jamira said he withdrew the report and warned her that if she officially filed a complaint, she would be imprisoned. This is in western Libya.

Libya was not the signing country of the Refugee Convention in 1951 or the “Protocol on the Status of Refugees” in 1967, and regarded refugees and seekers as “illegal immigrants”.

Human Rights Organization Libya’s crime observation stated that the country is divided into two parts, and each part is managed by different government, but the situation of immigrants in the east is easier because they can propose formal complaints without being detained and it is easier to get it. Medical services.

Although sexual violence is common in non -official facilities operated by traffickers, there are also evidence that the official detention center in Libya also has abuse, especially in the west.

Hana is a Sudan woman. She collects plastic bottles from the trash can to feed her child. She said she was abducted in western Libya and raped by a group of men.

The next day, the attacker brought her to a facility operated by the Stable Support Bureau (SSA) funded by the State. No one told Hanna’s detention.

Hana told Broadcasting Corporation: “When I was watching beside me, the young man and boy were beaten and forced to take off your clothes.”

“I stayed there for a few days. I slept on a bare floor, and my head pillow was on plastic slippers. After a few hours of begging, they would let me go to the toilet. My first was beaten many times.”

Earlier, immigrants from other African countries have been reported in Libya. The country is a key stepping stone to Europe, although none of the women interviewed by the BBC plan to go there.

In 2022, the International Amnesty Organization accused SSA of “illegally killing immigrants and refugees, arbitrary detention, interception, and subsequent detention, torture, forced labor, and other shocking human rights behaviors and crimes that violated international law.”

The report pointed out that the Ministry of the Interior of the Darrili in the capital told the International Amnesty Organization that the Ministry had no supervision of SSA because it was ordered to be at Prime Minister Abdul Hamid De Beibei, but its office did not respond to our criticism request requests Essence

The Libyan Criminal Observation Organization told the Broadcasting Corporation that the systematic abuse of immigrants occurred in the official immigration detention center, including Tripoli’s infamous Abasarim prison.

In a report in 2023, the “MSF) said that the number of” sexual violence and physical violence reports continued to increase, including systemic undressing and intimate searches and rape. “

The Minister of the Internal Affairs and Ripari cracking down on the illegal immigration department did not respond to our comment request.

Salma has now left the farm and moved to a new room in another nearby family, but she and her family are still facing the threat of being expelled and abused.

She said she couldn’t go home because of what happened to her.

“They would say that I brought a shame to my family. I’m not sure if they would welcome my body,” she said. “If I know what I am waiting for me here,”