---
title: "Listen: A place ‘worse than hell’ (Libya, Part Two)"
description: "Part Two of the harrowing story of Aliou Candé — a 28-year-old farmer and father from Guinea-Bissau — whose dream of a better life ended in one of Libya’s brutal migrant prisons."
type: "NewsArticle"
publisher: "Daily Maverick"
site: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za"
section: "THE OUTLAW OCEAN PROJECT"
author: "The Outlaw Ocean Project"
author_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/author/the-outlaw-ocean-project/"
canonical_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2025-06-13-listen-a-place-worse-than-hell-libya-part-two/"
published: "2025-06-13T14:00:26"
updated: "2025-06-13T14:00:27"
lang: "en-ZA"
word_count: 209
---

# Listen: A place ‘worse than hell’ (Libya, Part Two)

> Part Two of the harrowing story of Aliou Candé — a 28-year-old farmer and father from Guinea-Bissau — whose dream of a better life ended in one of Libya’s brutal migrant prisons.

By The Outlaw Ocean Project · Published 13 June 2025, 16:00 SAST · Updated 13 June 2025, 16:00 SAST

## Key points
- As the Libyan Coast Guard plays the grim role of the EU's enforcer, migrants like Aliou Candé find themselves trapped in a hellish game of human trafficking and violence, where hope is a luxury that often costs lives.
- The Libyan Coast Guard is effectively acting as the EU's enforcer, detaining migrants attempting to reach Europe and imprisoning them in secret facilities.
- An investigation into the death of Aliou Candé reveals the brutality faced by migrants in Libya's violent regime, highlighting systemic abuse and exploitation.
- The EU denies involvement in the migrant crisis despite providing resources that facilitate the capture and detention of migrants by Libyan authorities.
- Candé's tragic death underscores the perilous reality for migrants, who are often treated as commodities in a lawless system rife with violence and oppression.

## Content

The Libyan Coast Guard is doing the European Union’s dirty work, capturing migrants as they attempt to cross the Mediterranean into Europe and throwing them in secret prisons.

There, they are extorted, abused and sometimes killed. An investigation into the death of Aliou Candé, a young farmer and father from Guinea-Bissau, puts the Outlaw Ocean team in the cross-hairs of Libya’s violent and repressive regime.

In this three-part series, we take you inside the walls of one of the most dangerous prisons in a lawless regime where the world’s forgotten migrants languish.

[Listen to part one here](https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2025-06-06-listen-a-war-on-migration-funded-by-the-eu-libya-part-1/)

**Episode 2 highlights**

- The EU has claimed it plays no role in this migrant crisis, even as it provides boats, buses, petrol — even the tablets the Libyans use to count their captives.
- Once captured and counted, those migrants are often held in a network of secretive prisons run by competing militias, where exploitation, abuse and death are common. They are also routinely “rented” as everything from farm labour to soldiers in battle.
- Aliou Candé was sent to a prison where he died at the hands of prison guards while trying to protect himself in a melee. “I’m not going to fight. I’m the hope of my entire family,” he said. **DM**

[Spotify audio](https://open.spotify.com/embed/episode/65N67RLB9FuPekxwN4pKNb?utm_source=generator)

[YouTube video: "YouTube video"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REeWvTRUpMk)