The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has reported that there are nearly a million migrants currently residing in the North African state of Libya, many of whom will undoubtedly attempt to cross the Mediterranean and reach European soil.
According to the EU-funded Infomigrants website, the IOM’s Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM) program in Libya identified 939,638 migrants living within Libya as of the end of 2025, the largest figure on record.
However, the site noted that the real figure is likely much higher, given that many illegals are simply unaccounted for and that the East of the country is currently led by a rival government, the so-called “Government of National Stability”, making the gathering of accurate migration statistics in the region more difficult.
Regardless of the nearly a million migrants logged as being in the country, the largest groups hail from the fellow African nations of Chad, Egypt, Niger, Nigeria, and Sudan. They are mostly located in large urban centres, including in cities such as Benghazi, Misrata, and Tripoli, the United Nations agency said.
Following the 2011 civil war and the killing of former leader Muammar Gaddafi, Libya devolved into a failed state, leaving room for unscrupulous people-smuggling networks to set up shop along the country’s coastline, and helping transport hundreds of thousands to Europe since then.
Migrants are often put on unseaworthy vessels or on boats with just enough fuel to reach halfway across the sea from the African coastline, in a bid to divert costs onto pro-open borders NGO boats, which will often pick up the migrants and transport them the rest of the way to Europe.
The journey is often perilous, however, with at least 2,185 migrants recorded as having drowned to death while trying to reach Europe from Libya or other northern African nations. Again, the true figure is likely much higher, with many simply going missing without a trace.
Even before migrants set sail on the dangerous journey, they have often experience atrocities within Libya, with the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) reporting last month that migrants are “forcibly rounded up, abducted, separated from their families, arbitrarily arrested and detained, and transferred without due process” to a mixture of “official, unofficial, or illegal detention facilities.”
They further face “patterns of human rights violations and abuses perpetrated with impunity against migrants, asylum seekers and refugees in Libya,” such as human trafficking, murder, sexual violence, and torture, the OHCHR reported.
The apparent surge in the number of migrants in Libya comes amid increasing concern across Europe of another potential migrant crisis spurred by the conflict in the Middle East.
EU chief Ursula von der Leyen told member state leaders earlier this month that even aside from the potential migrant crisis in Iran or Lebanon, “worrying developments are being recorded along the Central and Eastern Mediterranean routes, with a sharp increase in departures from Libya.”
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