Earlier this year, French photographer Guillaume Binet gained rare access to three Libyan detention centres where migrants - many from Sub-Saharan Africa - are held, on their desperate attempt to flee war, famine or hardship at home.
Migrants are held in make-shift prisons in the detention centres across Libya. They live with virtually no contact with the outside world, and no idea when their detention will end.Photograph: Guillaume Binet /MYOP
Detainees with suspected HIV, tuberculosis or other infectious diseases are held in a separate cell at the Trig Al Matar detention centre.Photograph: Guillaume Binet /MYOP
Children, babies and pregnant women are held in detention centres. There are women in the late stages of pregnancy, but also women in the early stages of pregnancy despite having been detained for several months. Photograph: Guillaume Binet /MYOP
Tripoli, the Libyan capital, is plagued by fighting between different militias keen to take control of strategic neighbourhoods, banks and administrative buildings, but also for the control of the migrant flows.
Photograph: Guillaume Binet /MYOP
Migrants are often detained in former factories or warehouses. Many of these detention centres are overcrowded.
Photograph: Guillaume Binet /MYOP
Those who can escape the prisons or evade militias climb, sometimes 100-strong, onto small boats and set sail, hoping to be rescued by a boat in the international waters off Libya, a boat that will take them to Europe.
Photograph: Guillaume Binet /MYOP
A scene of joy after migrants have been rescued from the sea.Photograph: Guillaume Binet /MYOP
Children aboard the MSF ship Aquarius after being rescued.Photograph: Guillaume Binet /MYOP
The journey is long and harrowing; but even if the migrants reach Europe, their future there is uncertain and difficult.Photograph: Guillaume Binet /MYOP
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