Libya

In the capital, Tripoli, our teams provided general health care, mental health support, and sexual and reproductive health services to migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers held in detention centers. We continued to witness and hear accounts of people being assaulted, sexually abused, beaten, killed, and systematically deprived of their most basic human rights, including proper access to food, water, sanitation and medical care inside these facilities. Additionally, people told our staff about practices of forced labor, kidnapping, human trafficking, extortion, and other human rights abuses in Libya.  

Tuberculosis (TB) remained another focus of our activities in Libya in 2023. We continued to support the Ministry of Health’s TB unit in Zuwarah and an isolation unit for the management of multidrug-resistant TB at Misrata Chest Hospital. 
 
Throughout 2023, our teams were repeatedly denied entry to Tripoli detention centers and eventually lost access completely by August. By late August, we ended medical activities in Tripoli detention centers and urban settings, and by the end of 2023, we ended our support to the National Program on Tuberculosis and at Abu-Setta Hospital for Respiratory Diseases. 

In September, severe flooding devastated the coastal city of Derna in eastern Libya. More than 4,000 people died within a few hours, and 8,000 were reported missing. Our teams responded to the disaster by donating medical items and conducting medical and mental health consultations through three general health care centers.