Libya's rebirth attracts migrants

Sub-Saharan Africans have long headed for Libya as a jumping off point to try to reach Europe - now it is a destination in its own right.

Migrants, especially from sub-Saharan Africa, are visible in Tripoli.

TRIPOLI // Tinbit Belachew never meant to end up in Libya. Jobless for years, he played pool and read police thrillers in his hometown of Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, before his father's death last year jolted him into illegal migration.

With US$800 (Dh2,900) in his pocket to pay smugglers, Mr Belachew, 32, set out for Italy in an overloaded lorry rumbling across the Sahara. Fate brought him instead to Libya - a state once shunned by the West - that is a magnet for migrants and is now struggling to change as part of cultivating ties with Europe. For three decades after seizing power in 1969, Muammer Qadafi, the Libyan leader, supported a wide array of militant groups, behaviour that resulted in the United Sates and UK cutting relations and sanctions being piled on the country.

Things started changing 10 years ago when Libya surrendered suspects in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, renounced terrorism and abandoned its nuclear programme. Today, British and American embassies have reopened, sanctions have been lifted and foreign companies are queuing up to do business. That, plus Libya's position as a jumping-off point for Italy, draws thousands of migrants from poor, mainly African, countries.

The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) estimates that up to a third of Libya's six million inhabitants are irregular migrants, including the tens of thousands who brave the Mediterranean each year in flimsy boats. Many others are seeking employment in Libya itself as the country opens economically. sub-Saharans are visible around Tripoli, Libya's capital, queuing to wire money to their families.

Libya "is experiencing an opening and a boom in construction that require manpower that cannot be met by locals," said Laurence Hart, Libya mission chief for the IOM. "I'm here for the money, simple as that," said Alia, a Chadian who arrived in Tripoli last year and did not give his surname. On a recent afternoon, Alia and about a dozen fellow Chadians were helping Turkish construction workers mount cream-coloured facade panels on the Burj Bulayla, one of several new skyscrapers going up along the Mediterranean.

"They need the work, and we need the help," said Ozturk Kilic, the regional manager for Metal Yapi, the Turkish firm installing the facade. "No Libyans have come to ask me for a job." Mr Ozturk predicted that "in five or 10 years, Libya will be like Dubai". Khalid Tahawi, an Egyptian who entered Libya freely as an Arab country citizen two years ago and has since stocked shelves and mopped floors in a supermarket across town, sends most of the 500 Libyan dinars (Dh1,500) he makes each month to his family in Cairo. When he lies on his bed of plastic crates at night, he dreams of Europe.

"Everyone has dreams," he said. "But life comes down to possibilities. To luck." Luck was not with Mr Belachew, the Ethiopian, who left home six months ago. When he reached Libya, his smugglers kidnapped him to extract a ransom of $850, wired by a sister in Sicily. He found work as a cleaner in Tripoli but was arrested in July and placed in a migrant detention centre. Libya's 18 migrant centres, mainly converted warehouses, have become increasingly overcrowded since May, when Italy began summarily deporting migrants intercepted at sea to Libya under a package of bilateral agreements signed last year between the countries, said Mr Hart. In return, Italy will pay Libya $5 billion over 20 years in reparations for Italian colonialism.

Human rights groups have protested against the move, since Libya has not signed the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention and does not have an asylum system in place. Despite its popularity with migrants, the country "does not have a clear picture when it comes to migration," said Mustafa Fetouri, a political analyst and professor of business management at Tripoli's Academy of Graduate Studies. In May, Libya began joint sea patrols with Italy, pledging to step up its efforts to combat illegal migration. That did not prevent Mr Belachew from bribing his way out of the detention centre.

"Things have improved for me now, but I can't stay in Libya," he said, relaxing with other Ethiopians outside Tripoli's IOM office, where he came to pick up new travel documents. "I'd only be arrested again." [e-mail]