On May 31, and away from the glaring media, Libya, Chad, Sudan and Niger signed in the Chadian capital N'Djamena a security protocol to strengthen cooperation among the neighboring countries. The protocol aims to improve cross-border security by targeting transborder criminal activities, particularly human trafficking, arms and narcotics smuggling, as well as the smuggling of goods. Goods are especially smuggled from Libya, where they are subsidized, and then sold at high prices in countries like Chad and Sudan.

The four countries have been cooperating effectively within regional organizations such as the Community of Sahel-Saharan States (CEN-SAD) established by Libya in February 1998. But the challenges this time around are more complicated and far-reaching since the civil war in Libya. CEN-SAD has lost too much momentum and became almost dead after late Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, who founded it, was toppled in 2011.

Al-Monitor asked Fathalla al-Jadi, the director of the legal department at the Libyan Foreign Ministry, if the new protocol is adding anything that was not already mentioned in previous agreements, namely within the CEN-SAD framework. He said, “What existed before 2011 is bilateral security coordination within CEN-SAD, but the new protocol responds to today’s challenges, which are different from yesterday’s.”

Indeed, the surge in illegal migration was not a major security issue before NATO intervened in Libya in 2011 to help rebels topple Gadhafi before killing him on Oct. 20, 2011, plunging the country into chaos. Ever since, Libya has been dominated by militias and entangled in its own domestic problems with no effective central government capable of controlling the country’s vast southern borders.