Photo credit: The Libya Observer
Boats used to carry irregular migrants from Libya to Europe have become part of a clandestine market growing alongside people smuggling.
Asharq Al-Awsat reports that smugglers are gradually moving from boats brought in from abroad to vessels built in Libya and outfitted specifically for sea crossings, security officials and rights advocates say.
Libyan authorities regularly announce the discovery of clandestine workshops or factories making boats for irregular migration, widely known as “death boats.”
The raids point to continued smuggling activity in coastal areas across both western and eastern Libya.
Photographs released over the years by security agencies on both sides of the country offer a glimpse of the workshops. Often abandoned on secluded sites, they contain wooden planks, engines and manufacturing equipment, as well as finished boats and others still under construction.
In some cases, security agencies have burned seized boats and components after raids to prevent their reuse in migrant smuggling.
The workshops are scattered across coastal cities near departure points for irregular migration, according to monitoring by the Benghazi Centre for Migration Studies.
Some are carpentry shops or simple premises near the coast that have been converted to boatbuilding, the centre’s head, Tarek Lamloum, told Asharq Al-Awsat.
In Zuwara, for example, authorities found a coastal property that had been turned into a workshop for wooden boats.
Earlier this September, authorities found two facilities making migration boats in Tobruk, in the east, and Sirte, along with boats and manufacturing equipment.
Similar sites had previously been raided in western Libya, including Tajoura in Tripoli, Khoms and al-Qawiya. Authorities found two facilities in Misrata laxst year.
