Hundreds of migrants, including Sudanese nationals, have been detained in sweeping raids across the eastern Libyan city of Tobruk, with families reporting that relatives have disappeared after being taken into custody.
Libya’s eastern anti-illegal immigration agency announced on Thursday that it had detained hundreds of migrants during operations targeting markets, residential buildings and roads in the coastal city.
Videos released by the agency and reviewed by local Sudanese media showed large numbers of migrants being detained before being transported in commercial trucks to undisclosed locations.
The raids, conducted on Wednesday and Thursday, have left Sudanese families searching for relatives whose whereabouts remain unknown.
Three Sudanese families told local Sudanese media that their relatives had been arrested during the operations and that they had received no information about their fate.
Salwa Adam said her brother, Saif al-Din Adam, left home on Wednesday morning to work at the city’s al-Bersim market but never returned.
The family subsequently learned that he had been detained during the raids.
Despite searching for him at the immigration agency’s headquarters, relatives have been unable to establish his whereabouts. The agency acknowledged detaining hundreds of migrants and transferring them outside Tobruk but did not disclose their destination.
Another Sudanese resident, Ali Sharaf al-Din Abdullah, said two of his brothers and his nephew were detained when security forces raided their residential building on Wednesday.
A Sudanese man who shared the accommodation but was outside when the raid took place later informed the family that everyone inside had been arrested.
The authorities subsequently ordered him to leave the building after issuing an eviction warning.
Local Sudanese media documented additional accounts from families reporting the detention of relatives during the two-day operation.
Migration crackdown raises concerns
Tobruk has become a major departure point for migrants attempting to reach Europe across the Mediterranean, particularly through the Greek islands of Gavdos and Crete.
The latest raids come amid growing hostility towards refugees and migrants in several Libyan cities.
In Tripoli, a group calling itself the No to Settlement Movement has shut the offices of the United Nations refugee agency and the International Organization for Migration, according to local Sudanese media.
The closures have coincided with anti-migrant campaigns on social media and calls for foreign nationals to be expelled from the country.
Libya remains a major destination for Sudanese refugees fleeing the war in their homeland, with significant communities in Kufra, Benghazi, Ajdabiya and Tobruk in the east, as well as Misrata and Tripoli in the west.
According to UN refugee agency figures cited by local Sudanese media, approximately 500,000 Sudanese refugees were registered in Libya as of April 2026.
The latest detentions have added to concerns over the safety of Sudanese nationals in Libya, particularly those whose families have been unable to establish where they are being held.
