A multisided armed conflict has been raging in Libya since the country’s NATO-backed uprising ousted and killed dictator Moammar Gadhafi on Oct. 20, 2011. Lost from view as the media and nongovernmental organizations have focused on continuous cease-fire violations has been the targeting by extremist Islamist militias of LGBTQ+ individuals.
Libyan LGBTQ+ activists told Al-Monitor that members of their community have been victims of beatings, imprisonment and murder by the armed militia groups. “We risk kidnapping, torture or forced disappearance by militias. Most people of the LGBTQ+ community in Libya don’t have any hope that things will change for the better,” said an LGBTQ+ activist who asked to speak on condition of anonymity for security reasons.
The 22-year-old Libyan LGBTQ+ activist, who now lives in Tunis, the capital of neighboring Tunisia, added, “I fled Libya five years ago when I got into trouble with the militia and my family. Leaving is often the only solution. If they can, LGBTQ+ people first go to Tunisia, hoping to be resettled in a safe country with the help of the UN Refugee Agency UNHCR.”
“Many LGBTQ+ people who manage to leave Libya migrate to Tunisia, where civil society organizations, primarily LGBTQ+ groups, offer them temporary assistance and support in seeking asylum elsewhere,” Rasha Younes, a researcher at Human Rights Watch, told Al-Monitor.
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