Gregory Aftandilian
Libya has fallen off the international radar screen as other crises in the region—the Israel-Hamas and Israel-Hezbollah wars, the Sudanese civil war, and the change of regime in Syria—have dominated the news. But Libya’s internal problems have not abated. The country remains deeply polarized.
The political leadership in each region is backed by militia groups that have benefited from oil, extortion, and human trafficking schemes that prey on the large number of migrants in the country. Although a new United Nations (UN) team is in place, it is not likely to be any more successful than the previous ones.
Last April Abdoulaye Bathily, threw up his hands and resigned after failing to get the two sides to agree on a political process, centered upon national elections for a national unity government, to end the divide. As long as each side is comfortable profiting from the status quo, there is little incentive for them to hold the vote; the proposed elections have been stalled since December 2021.
In the meantime, foreign governments, with their own agendas in Libya, contribute to the division by backing their favorite domestic actors in this internal struggle.
No Change in Government Structures
and Power Dynamics
Libya has been divided politically since 2014, three years following the 2011 overthrow of dictator Muammar Qaddafi.
Today’s Government of National Unity (GNU) is based in Tripoli, controls about a third of the northern part of the country, and is supported by various militias in the west. A rival government in the east, finding its legitimacy from the House of Representatives (HoR) in Tobruk, controls the remaining two-thirds of Libya’s north (the rest of the country is mostly sparsely populated desert).
The Tobruk government depends on the support of the self-anointed Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar and his large militia, the Libyan National Army (LNA).
Since Haftar’s failed attempt to take over Tripoli in 2019-2020, the country has been wracked by occasional outbursts of militia violence. The only good news in recent months is that such fighting has decreased.
This is not because the militias have suddenly embraced the idea of peaceful co-existence. Rather, they probably have been too busy making money, perhaps motivated by the belief that violence is bad for business.
Oil Divisions and Schemes
Libya has long been Africa’s second-largest oil producer after Nigeria. In the 1970s, under Qaddafi, oil production reached 3 million barrels per day (b/d). But in the post-Qadhafi period, output has been much lower and has fluctuated based on political and security conditions.
In a September 2020 agreement between the eastern- and western-based governments, revenues from the oil and gas sectors were to be equally divided. But the two sides disagreed over who should head the National Oil Corporation (NOC) and the Central Bank (oil revenues are first to go into accounts managed by the Central Bank).
The dispute came to a head in August 2024 when forces loyal to Haftar blockaded major oil fields and ports, causing oil production to fall from 1.2 million b/d to 600,000 b/d. After several weeks of negotiations and the appointment of a new Central Bank Governor acceptable to Haftar and his political allies, production shot back up to 1.2 million b/d in October 2024, and by December had inched up to 1.4 million b/d.
Libyan authorities hope that production can be expanded to 2 million b/d by the end of 2025, although that may be too ambitious a goal. Oil revenues, which account for 95 percent of Libya’s exports and two-thirds of its GDP, are obviously vital to the country’s economy, including by financing food imports for its population, almost a third of which remains in poverty.
At the same time, the country’s dueling governments use oil revenues to sustain themselves, and this income serves as a deterrent to forming a unified government. In other words, oil revenues keep both sides comfortable in sustaining the status quo.
The country’s dueling governments
use oil revenues to sustain themselves.
Perhaps to become less beholden to the NOC and the Central Bank for oil revenues, Khalifa Haftar in 2023 allowed his son, Saddam, heir apparent and now chief of staff of the LNA, to set up a private Libyan oil company outside of the NOC.
This new company, called Arkenu, is headquartered in Benghazi in the east. According to media reports, between May and December 2024, Arkenu exported 7.6 million barrels of oil worth some $600 million.
But instead of being deposited in Libya’s Central Bank account in New York, the money from Arkenu was reportedly put into bank accounts in Dubai and Geneva.
Oil revenues also fund barter schemes that sustain the rival governments. Both west and east governments have been engaged in illicit barter arrangements that work as follows. Oil authorities swap crude oil for refined fuels (the country lacks adequate refinery capabilities) instead of purchasing them. The refined fuels are sold domestically at subsidized prices and then resold on the black market.
Libya’s subsidized fuel system costs $12.5 billion annually. Because gasoline and diesel are sold at a fraction of their production costs, black market operators tied to the political factions and the armed militias reap large profits in subsequent sales. Import volumes of refined fuel totaled 5.5 million tons in 2020 and reached 10.35 million tons by 2024.
Exploitation of Migrants
Another obstacle to unification and peace is a huge influx, and Libyan exploitation of, irregular migrants and refugees, who are mostly people from sub-Saharan Africa seeking to reach Europe from Libya’s Mediterranean coast.
According to one report, as of May 2024 there were 725,304 migrants and refugees in the country. More than 4,000 of them were arbitrarily detained in official detention centers, while another 3,000 were detained in unofficial detention centers operated by Libyan armed groups.
On March 18, 2025, the GNU Minister of Interior Emad al-Trabelsi claimed in front of ambassadors and representatives of the International Organization of Migration (IOM) and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees that 4 million migrants are currently in the country.
He emphasized that Libya will not bear the burden of caring for them alone and will not become a resettlement zone for them, either. In this he was supported by the prime minister of the eastern HoR government, Osama Hammad, who essentially said the same thing.
Trabelsi underscored that the root of the problem is Libya’s porous southern border, and called on the European Union to provide modern equipment and technology to improve monitoring.
But the southern border is a vast desert area that is a huge challenge to control. Moreover, many traffickers of these desperate migrants belong to militias tied to the east and west governments. So, on the one hand, Libyan officials complain about an inundation of migrants; on the other hand, there are profits to be made from this sordid business.
Information continues to surface about this human tragedy.
On March 22, 2024, IOM reported that at least 65 bodies were found in a mass grave in the southwest desert. The victims likely died while being smuggled to the Mediterranean.
This disturbing story came on the heels of another report that at least 60 migrants died after leaving the Libyan coast to cross the Mediterranean in a dingy.
Although the UN has provided some humanitarian assistance to migrants in Libya, it is nowhere near enough, and these people are being subjected to abuse, rape, and sexual violence allegedly perpetrated by Libyan officials and affiliated militias. The UN recently called on Libyan authorities to desist from misinformation and hate speech campaigns about migrants.
To be sure, Libya faces genuine challenges in dealing with a migrant crisis of this scale. But the fact that the government turns a blind eye to or is implicated in human trafficking schemes and reaps profits from it, is central to the problem.
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Gregory Aftandilian is a Nonresident Fellow at Arab Center Washington DC. He is a Senior Professorial Lecturer at American University where he teaches courses on US foreign policy. He is also an adjunct faculty member at Boston University and George Mason University, teaching courses on Middle East politics.
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