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Video footage and photos in the Italian press appear to show for the first time a militia allied with the Libyan government participating in people smuggling in the Mediterranean Sea.
The clips and photographs, shared with the Guardian, were taken by a journalist for the Italian newspaper La Repubblica who had accompanied volunteers on a rescue boat operated by the NGO Mediterranea Saving Humans.
In one set, Kurdish refugees, who told the NGO they had been taken from a detention centre by the militia, are seen in the water near the rescue boat after witnesses said they had been kicked into the sea.
The images, photos and a detailed account of the events have been sent by the NGO to prosecutors in Trapani, Sicily and to the international criminal court.
“This time there is video and photographic evidence that cannot be covered up: the Libyan traffickers who violently threw ten young refugees into the open sea, right in front of our rescue vessel, after keeping them in detention camps, are part of Tripoli’s official military apparatus,” Mediterranea said in a statement, using a definition of trafficking that extends to any exploitation or coercion along a people-smuggling route. “We have always known this, but now we have filmed them, photographed them, traced their identities. We know who they are.”
The first set of clips and photographs, from 18 August, shows men on Libyan patrol boats in balaclavas and uniforms bearing the insignia of the 80th Special Operations Battalion of the 111th Brigade – a militia led by the Libyan deputy defence minister, Abdul Salam Al-Zoubi.
A second set of clips, filmed at night two days later, shows Iraqi-Kurdish people in the water having been kicked into the sea, according to witnesses aboard the NGO boat. As the vessel they went overboard from turns away, it is illuminated by the rescuers’ flashlights and shown to have the same irregularly painted border between its black sides and white hull as the boat seen on the 18th.
Kurdish people picked up by the Mediterranea told the NGO’s crew that only hours before they had been rounded up in a Libyan detention centre. The rescued witnesses alleged that four others, fearing it was a trap, refused to follow the militiamen and had been killed, the NGO said.
Libya has been a main transit point in recent years for migrants fleeing war and poverty in Africa and the Middle East. As of February 2025, about 867,055 people of 44 different nationalities were residing in Libya, according to data from the International Organization for Migration.
According to numerous aid agencies – including United Nations reports – government-aligned militias in Libya have been implicated in rights abuses against migrants for years, including running or partnering with detention centres where people are extorted, tortured and sexually enslaved, kidnapping people for ransom, colluding with units of the Libyan coastguard, and human trafficking.
Libya’s militias have been patrolling the Mediterranean sea since the government in Tripoli struck a deal with Italy in February 2017 that empowered it to forcibly return migrants that it intercepts in the waters to the north African country.
The deal, which entailed Italy providing funds and equipment, was made by Marco Minniti, the former interior minister from the centre-left Democratic party, in an attempt to stem migrant flows.
On 4 September, Al-Zoubi met Italy’s interior minister Matteo Piantedosi, who in an official statement praised Italy’s “fruitful cooperation” with the Libyan government.
Luca Casarini, co-founder of Mediterranea, alleged to the Guardian that the footage, photographs and testimony of the rescued people “proves that the real beneficiaries of Italian funds are human traffickers”.
The Guardian contacted the Italian interior ministry for comment but has not yet received a response. Libya’s defence ministry has also not replied to a request for comment.
