A land convoy attempting to deliver aid to Gaza has been forced to abandon its mission after days of escalating obstruction, violence and arrests in eastern Libya.
The news comes two weeks after openDemocracy reported on how the convoy had become trapped by the refusal of Libyan militias to allow their passage through a checkpoint near Sirte, as they attempted to continue east towards Egypt.
Days after our article was published, ten members of a negotiating delegation approached a nearby checkpoint to discuss safe passage for the humanitarian mission. They were forced into unmarked white vans, taken to an unknown location and cut off from communication, according to Global Sumud. A further volunteer, 24-year-old Tunisian technical team member Mehdi Bouzguenda, had already been detained five days earlier while attempting to return home near the Tunisian-Libyan border.
“After our comrades were detained, we were attacked by two Libyan militias and our camp was destroyed,” South African writer and convoy participant Jessica Breakey told openDemocracy this week. “They escorted us all the way back to Tripoli.”
Global Sumud said unmarked vehicles began surrounding the convoy, where more than 200 participants were encamped, on the night of 25 May. Participants were forced to evacuate, and some men and women were physically assaulted.
Most international and Maghreb participants are now home and safe, Breakey said, but the detained volunteers from the negotiating team remain in custody. Global Sumud confirmed that 11 civilian volunteers – five Europeans, three people from Latin America, one from the US and two from Tunisia – remain detained in Libya as of 3 June.
The ten negotiators were brought before the attorney general in the Libyan city of Benghazi on 2 June, after more than seven days without seeing a judge or prosecutor. Their detention was extended for another ten days. Global Sumud says the volunteers have been denied legal counsel, subjected to severed communications and psychological pressure, and that some were forced to sign statements in Arabic without interpretation.
The convoy’s forced retreat marks the collapse of one of the most ambitious attempts to reach Gaza by land since the current assault began. Its organisers say they were carrying medical and humanitarian supplies for a population under siege. Instead, the mission ended with its camp destroyed, its participants dispersed, and 11 volunteers still detained in eastern Libya.
While attacks on and interceptions of Gaza-bound boats in the Mediterranean have drawn wider international attention, the overland route has also been violently blocked. Global Sumud says its land convoy included around 230 participants from 21 countries, carrying ambulances, medicine and mobile homes. An earlier statement said the convoy included seven ambulances, 20 mobile homes and ten aid trucks with supplies intended for Gaza’s besieged civilian population.
