Stuck In Libya

• Photographer
  Lorenzo Tugnoli
• Agency / Studio
  contrasto

Libya, the biggest jumping-off point for migrants trying to reach Europe, is now home to a thriving trade in humans. Migrants escaping from poverty and war end up being held as slaves, tortured or forced into prostitution by traffickers and smugglers. I visited two main government-run detention centers in Tripoli, as well as a third in the coastal city of Zawiyah that is controlled by a militia allegedly involved in human trafficking, according to U.N. investigators. All detention centers offer dire living condition and all are woefully underfunded.

Lorenzo Tugnoli (b. 1979, Italy) is a photographer based in Beirut. His work has been published by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Le Monde, Newsweek, Time Magazine, Wired, Financial Times, The New Republic, The Atlantic, Der Spiegel, LFI - Leica Fotografie International. He is a regular contributor of the The Washington Post. In 2014 he published The Little Book of Kabul, a book project that depicts a portraif of Kabul through the daily life of a number of artists who live in the city, in collaboration with writer Francesca Recchia. Lorenzo is represented by Contrasto.