Libya – the ’Forgotten Civil War’ and its Implications on Migration Crisis

Abstract

The Libyan crisis seems to have a lower importance for the European public compared to the more relevant Syrian crisis and the migration flow it induced, and it’s somewhat neglected by both the press and the scientific literature. While writings on the Middle East nowadays are more concentrated around the the Syrian crisis and its wider context (Turkey, Islamic State, European migration flows… etc.), the other major crisis in the ’background’, Libya is rarely reported. This is not only due to the smaller size of the conflict (and the much lower number of human casualties), but also due to the conflict’s lower impact on Europe, which generates lower interest from the European audience. This article attempts to address this gap at least partially by showing the complexity of the Libyan conflict and recognizing that because of the closure of the Balkan migration routes, now the Libyan migratory flow poses one of the biggest security challenges for the EU, which can be only managed by having a deeper understanding of Libyan civil war.