From 2014 to 2020, 660 thousand migrants landed in Italy. About 90% of them spent weeks, months or years in Libya, mainly coming from West African countries or the Horn of Africa. The report The Torture Factory is based on over three thousand direct testimonies of migrants and refugees who passed through Libya, collected by operators of Doctors for Human Rights (MEDU) over a six-year period from 2014 to 2020.
The report analyses the period from three points of view: 1) the migratory flows arriving in Italy from the Libyan coast; 2) the system of abuse and exploitation that is carried out in Libya to the detriment of migrants and refugees; 3) the psychological and physical consequences of the violence suffered. The comparison of two phases is also explored; the three years preceding the Italy-Libya agreement on migrants (February 2014 – January 2017) and the three years following the same agreement (February 2017 – January 2020).
The stories of the survivors describe with dramatic precision the places, the perpetrators and the methods of the violence that is systematically consumed in Libyan territory, inside and outside the detention and kidnapping centers. They recall the grave responsibilities of Italy, the European Union and the entire international community and represent a formidable indictment of the tragedy that is being played out in recent years on the migratory routes that lead through Libya to Europe.
