Eastern Libya Deports 602 Chadian Migrants as Raids Expand
Eastern Libyan authorities transported 602 Chadian migrants across the border on Wednesday, November 11, after detaining them in security operations across cities and desert routes controlled by Khalifa Haftar’s forces. The authorities described the operation as a lawful “repatriation.” Local reporting used the more direct term: deportation.
The immediate facts are unusually clear. Abdulmenam al-Ghomati, spokesperson for the eastern interior ministry’s anti-migration agency, told Reuters that the transfer took about a day and a half. Al-Wasat, citing the agency’s own statement, said the group included people with medical conditions, people placed under security restrictions, migrants detained during raids and others intercepted while trying to enter Libya without authorization.
The agency did not publish a list of names, disclose how long people had been detained or say whether each person received an individual assessment before removal. It also did not say whether representatives of Chad, the International Organization for Migration or the UN refugee agency monitored the crossing. Those unanswered questions matter because the group may have included workers, people in transit and people with possible protection claims—not one legally uniform category.
The return was carried out through Kufra, the southeastern oasis city that connects Libya to long desert corridors through Chad and Sudan. The same agency said its campaign would continue under orders from Saddam Haftar, deputy commander of the eastern forces. Al-Ghomati said the directive extends beyond border interception to raids on homes rented by migrants in residential neighborhoods.
That wider campaign turns a one-day convoy into a question about the rights of nearly one million people. The International Organization for Migration identified 950,004 migrants across 100 Libyan municipalities in May and June. Its latest border analysis, covering July through September, found incoming movement down 47 percent from the previous quarter as intensified controls, arrests and disruption of smuggling networks pushed travelers toward more remote and dangerous desert routes.
Libyan authorities have a legitimate duty to manage borders and investigate trafficking. But border enforcement does not erase the obligation to distinguish among labor migrants, trafficking victims, asylum seekers and people facing danger if returned. The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights warned in an October report that arrests, detention and removals had intensified in Libya, sometimes without sufficient individual assessment, while the country still lacks a comprehensive asylum framework.
Libya’s political division deepens the accountability gap. The Haftar-aligned administration controls the east and much of the south, while a rival government operates in Tripoli. Migrants can therefore face different authorities, detention systems and appeal possibilities depending on where they are stopped. The November 11 operation was announced by the eastern agency; no independent monitoring report was publicly available Thursday.
The route itself is shaped by more than a desire to reach Europe. IOM data describe long-standing seasonal and employment-driven movement alongside displacement from wars in Sudan and elsewhere. Many migrants come to Libya for work; others continue toward the Mediterranean. As Pamphlets reported after the recent Kébémer boat disaster in Senegal, the most visible deaths at sea often begin with economic exclusion, restricted legal mobility and coercive journeys far inland.
For the 602 people returned to Chad, the next test is concrete: whether they reached safety, whether families were kept together and whether anyone who feared persecution or serious harm had a real chance to say so. For Libya’s eastern authorities, the test is whether the expanding raids will produce transparent legal records and independent access—or reduce a diverse migrant population to a security statistic.
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