7° Edition

Libya : a human marketplace

Mexican photojournalist and anthropologist Narciso Contreras spent time between February and June 2016 in northwest post-Gaddafi Libya, from where he brought back striking images of human trafficking carried out by militias and armed groups.

Narciso Contreras

Migrants locked up in a detention centre begging for water, cigarettes, food and freedom. © Narciso Contreras for the Fondation Carmignac

Six years after the fall of Gaddafi’s regime in October 2011, Libya is gripped by an unprecedented political, military and humanitarian crisis.

While the UN-backed Government of National Accord still fails to assert its authority, violent clashes continue to erupt daily across the country between militias and rival factions. The wave of hope that followed the revolution has now given way to chaos.

The Carmignac Photojournalism Award chose to support an in-depth project on this country, from which we had until then received almost no images.

As early as 2015, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) was warning of the “extreme brutality” endured by migrants, yet Libya remained, in the words of Narciso Contreras, an “impenetrable stone.”

It was in this chaos that the photographer carried out his investigation in 2016, becoming the first to document the monstrous reality of human trafficking. He had to infiltrate an inaccessible system to provide the first direct visual evidence of markets where thousands of migrants are bought and sold.

Overcrowded prisons, non-existent healthcare, abject misery, arbitrary violence: the thousands of sub-Saharan migrants and refugees who end up in these labour camps are bought and sold every day like cattle by tribal militias and armed gangs, with the complicity of whatever Libyan authorities remain in power.

His work — recognized by the Lucas Dolega Award — broke the silence and played a key role in the global scandal of 2017, prompting France to label these acts as “crimes against humanity” and to call for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council. His images revealed an unbearable truth: “The migrants I met have been victims of slave trafficking for so long that they are broken.”

Today, in a country still fragmented, abuses against migrants are described as possible crimes against humanity by the UN Fact-Finding Mission.

In Libya, repression against journalists remains fierce. Already severe in 2024, it continued into 2025 with the arson attack on Radio Lam’s offices in Tripoli on January 7 and the armed assault on the headquarters of the newspaper Al-Waqt on January 13. These attacks illustrate a climate of constant insecurity for the media. Libya ranks 137th out of 180 in the World Press Freedom Index.
Reporters Without Borders

Toubou militiamen pray at dusk in the middle of the desert, near the border with Niger, in southern Libya. Al Toum, Libya. © Narciso Contreras for the Fondation Carmignac.