###Libya Is Not Europe: Where Refugee Journeys Are Broken Before the Sea
By Janifer Yasmin The Journey Before the Sea Fatima was 19 when she packed her bag and left her home in Sudan. She left because war had turned her city into ruins. Families around her were killed. Her brother had disappeared. The only direction she saw was forward toward somewhere safe. Somewhere called “Europe.” But long before the Mediterranean Sea ever appeared on her horizon, Libya became her prison. Fatima was detained at a checkpoint near the outskirts of Tripoli. She was told to pay a bribe. When she couldn’t, guards took her to a detention centre a place surrounded by barbed wire, where men, women, and children lived in overcrowded rooms, lacking food, water, and medicine. She had not even started the sea crossing yet. For thousands of refugees like Fatima, the journey does not begin with a deadly sea. It begins in Libya and for many, it ends there. OCCRP Libya: A Transit Country That Became a Dead End Libya has long been a transit country in North Africa ...