Militia Groups and Complicity of European States in Irregular Migration Crisis of Post-Gadhafi Libya - Research

This study examined how the emergent militia groups in post-Gadhafi Libya shaped the contours of migration in the state. The study is anchored on the gate-keeper state theory. The documentary method of data collection was employed while qualitative analysis of data was adopted. The study found that the fall of the Gadhafi regime in 2011 created interstices exploited by localarmed militia groups to commoditize migrants in Libya. Again, the armed militia groups served as agents of the three warring governments in Libya for securing their regime/territories and as agents of European countries, particularly Italy, to thwart the flow of irregular migrants to Europe. The commoditization of migrants by militia groups coalesced with the anti-migration strategies adopted by some European countries to create a migration crisis in which an avalanche of irregular migrants became trapped in Libya and was subjected to exploitation and slavery.