Anatomy of a racist movement
The “No to Resettlement” (لا للتوطين) campaign emerged in late 2025 as a digital mobilisation network operating across Telegram, TikTok and Facebook in western Libya. Fuelled by disinformation, online organisers and legal advocates conflated routine UNHCR refugee registration with permanent settlement and naturalisation, exploiting fears that European migration policies sought to turn Libya into a permanent holding ground for displaced people. A BBC investigation traced how misleading claims circulating online helped fuel hostility towards refugees and humanitarian organisations. The UN mission in Libya also publicly refuted allegations of a refugee resettlement programme.
By mid-2026, this online agitation had developed into a broader pressure network. Operating under slogans such as “Libya for Libyans”, the movement’s main operational branch, Hirak Nusata Tripoli (Tripoli Activists Against Resettlement), joined forces with municipal organisers, legal advocates including lawyer Thuraya al-Tuwaibi, and regional groups such as the Misrata Anti-Settlement Movement. Rather than operating under a single centralised command, these networks combined online mobilisation, administrative lawsuits and physical blockades targeting international humanitarian facilities. Reporting by Migration Control documents the development of this pressure network and its growing links with political institutions.
On 1 October, the movement called for mobilisation against the presence and activities of international organisations in Libya, further escalating its campaign against humanitarian work and the presence of refugees and migrants.
Death threat against Refugees in Libya activists: Bullet placed on a handwritten note with Arabic text and the date 1/10/2026
Developments after 1 October
The 1 October ultimatum did not trigger a single, coordinated nationwide mass expulsion. Instead, the post-October phase has unfolded through localised mobilisation, municipal-level enforcement and targeted security operations across Tripoli and neighbouring coastal areas. Libya Security Monitor’s reporting describes how the campaign’s planned mobilisation evolved, while anti-migrant sentiment remained high.
Municipal authorities in Tripoli Central and Tajoura have reportedly translated some of the campaign’s demands into housing restrictions and eviction measures targeting landlords renting to undocumented foreign nationals. These measures risk triggering further displacement, pushing vulnerable families into informal and precarious accommodation or further underground. At the same time, the operational presence of international humanitarian organisations in the capital remains severely disrupted.
Following the welding shut of the gates of its Al-Sarraj registration compound by protesters in late August, UNHCR’s in-person registration and frontline protection services have been severely disrupted and remain largely suspended. Emergency hotlines and remote protection referrals are still operating, but face-to-face documentation and case-processing capacities remain far below pre-crisis levels.
The violent breach of IOM’s Al-Siyahiya centre on 7 September, during which staff members and asylum seekers were assaulted, has severely constrained community-based outreach in western Tripoli. Voluntary Humanitarian Return (VHR) flights from Mitiga and Misrata continue intermittently under close Government of National Unity (GNU) oversight. However, local security interference continues to disrupt pre-departure medical screenings and vulnerability assessments, further limiting access to safe and voluntary return procedures. These incidents are also documented in the Migration Control investigation.
Evolution of the movement
The campaign has secured several institutional and administrative gains, while contributing to an increasingly hostile environment for refugees and migrants. Its actions have included pursuing an interim judicial stay on executive procedures related to Decree 49/1990, promoting housing restrictions in Tajoura and central Tripoli, and contributing to the physical closure and operational disruption of humanitarian facilities. Its rhetoric has also found echoes in statements by the GNU Ministry of Interior. Yet the movement’s demands go further, calling for the repeal or permanent invalidation of legal frameworks governing foreign residency and for coordinated mass deportations. Its representatives have also claimed to have halted UN humanitarian operations across Libya and asserted influence over autonomous municipal groups and local armed actors.
The movement has exploited Libya’s political fragmentation to translate its mobilisation into institutional influence. In June 2026, the Administrative Chamber of the Tripoli Court of Appeal issued an interim stay on executive implementation procedures concerning Decree 49/1990, a regulation granting specific Arab national populations equal access to public employment and administrative rights. Although campaign lawyers presented the ruling as a total repeal, it amounts legally to an interim suspension. The distinction is important: the ruling risks providing administrative cover for workplace discrimination and exclusion from public-sector employment. The legal challenge and the controversy surrounding the decree were reported by Libya 24.
This growing alignment with state institutions was further illustrated on 8 June 2026, when Interior Minister Imad al-Trabelsi met with movement representatives, bringing their anti-resettlement rhetoric into official state discourse. The meeting is documented in Migration Control’s investigation. This convergence reflects the political instrumentalisation of anti-migration sentiment: the Ministry can use these narratives to call for increased European border funding and reinforce its domestic authority, while the authorities’ response to activist groups disrupting humanitarian operations remains limited.
Consequences for people on the move
The convergence of municipal evictions, physical blockades and political scapegoating has had severe consequences for refugees and migrants, affecting their safety, access to basic services and ability to remain in their communities.
Political actors increasingly conflate refugee registration, third-country resettlement and local integration, portraying humanitarian protection as an attempt to permanently “settle” non-nationals in Libya. In reality, resettlement concerns only a very small proportion of refugees in need of protection, while local integration does not form part of UNHCR’s mandate in Libya. This conflation has fuelled hostility towards humanitarian organisations and those seeking protection. Both UNSMIL and Refugees in Libya have challenged claims that refugees are being resettled in the country.
While the movement’s legal strategy has targeted the rights of Arab regional residents through its challenge to Decree 49/1990, its street-level mobilisation has disproportionately exposed Black Sub-Saharan African migrants to racialised violence and harassment. Arbitrary roundups, forced evictions and intimidation have intensified, including threats directed at organisations and groups such as Refugees in Libya. The BBC investigation documents the spread of online misinformation and its consequences for people targeted by anti-migrant hostility.
These practices have also eroded essential lifelines. Urban evictions cut people off from housing, informal employment and emergency medical care, while the disruption of humanitarian facilities further restricts access to registration and protection services. People intercepted at sea by the so-called Libyan Coast Guard and returned to shore remain at risk of immediate transfer to detention centres, often without independent medical screening or reliable family tracing.
This local anti-resettlement mobilisation is also intertwined with European migration policies. By financing Libyan maritime interception capacities while restricting safe and legal pathways to Europe, the EU reinforces Libya’s role as a containment zone. European externalisation policies thus contribute to the conditions of insecurity and exclusion that anti-migrant movements exploit, leaving refugees and migrants trapped between state repression, local hostility and European border enforcement.
Announced next steps
Following the mid-September rally in Misrata’s Victory Square, local campaign committees have sought to extend the movement’s tactics to other municipalities in western Libya, pushing for the introduction of similar lease bans and restrictions on access to public markets. The campaign’s regional mobilisation and the groups involved were also reported by Libya Security Monitor.
The campaign’s legal strategy is also expanding. Its lawyers have announced plans to file further administrative lawsuits targeting bilateral agreements between the Libyan state and international non-governmental organisations (INGOs) operating in Tripoli, potentially increasing legal and administrative pressure on humanitarian organisations.
These developments are unfolding amid persistent political rivalries between eastern and western authorities, with migration control continuing to serve as a tool of political leverage. Against this backdrop, further targeted blockades and disruptions of international humanitarian facilities remain a concern, particularly ahead of upcoming political negotiations.
Jihed Brirmi
Update from 28 October 2026, based on a longer article published on the website of migration control.
