• David Yambio marched to the UN’s refugee agency offices in Geneva on Human Rights Day.
• The 25-year-old was a child soldier before fleeing his own country and the DRC.
• He came to Libya in 2018 and was arrested and abused before reaching Italian shores.

Asylum seeker in south Sudan demands international community lives up to its own values 74 years after the UN established the right of all individuals to live freely and peacefully.

David Yambio marched to the UN’s refugee agency offices in Geneva, Switzerland, to perform the second day of a sit-in on Human Rights Day.

The 25-year-old was a child soldier before fleeing his own country and the DRC. He came to Libya in 2018 and was arrested and abused before reaching Italian shores in June.

Now he’s on a mission to make Europe hear the pleas of thousands of refugees in Libya’s detention centers.

Yambio told Al Jazeera, “We joined the civic society to give a voice to the silent.” “Their rights were abused while UNHCR stood by.”

Yambio and his comrades want the refugee agency to help refugees in Libya live in humane conditions or evacuate them to a secure nation.

Currently, registering as an asylum seeker in Tripoli doesn’t safeguard against displacement, arbitrary detention, or mistreatment.

In October 2021, more than 4,000 migrants were captured in Gargaresh after raids killed one and injured 15.

Without a place to go, hundreds slept outside the UNHCR office in Tripoli for 100 days.

Yambio: “Women gave birth in the street, and medically needy people died.”

He set up the social media account Refugees in Libya with a group of migrants to highlight their living conditions.

Libyan troops dispersed the sit-in on January 10 and arrested hundreds, taking them to Ain Zara.

Yambio says the UNHCR called Libyan officials to disperse the throng outside its office, a charge the organization denies.

UNCHR said it “stands with asylum seekers and refugees in Libya”

UNHCR has consistently said Libya is unsafe for refugees and asylum seekers.

Since 2021, it has helped evacuate or resettle 3,450 vulnerable people from Libya.

“While we continue to campaign for the rights of refugees, asylum seekers, and foreign nationals in Libya and for the release of all those arbitrarily held, we underscore that States have the primary responsibility of protecting these people,” it stated.

UNHCR representatives met with demonstrators to listen to their concerns and explore expanding protection and support programs, the statement said.

More than 600 migrants seized on January 10 are still jailed almost a year later.

A South Sudanese man told Al Jazeera via a messaging app that torrential rains in Tripoli flooded part of the Ain Zara detention center, wetting the mattresses on the ground.

Malek, who requested not to be identified for fear of reprisals, said he was losing hope. He responded, “Animals are freer than I am.”

Malek: “I keep wondering why this is happening to me.” “I hope my tears become joy one day.”

The Libyan coastguard has returned more than 20,000 migrants to Libya this year.

The EU denies any responsibility for assisting migrants’ returns to Libya, but humanitarian organizations believe material and technical aid strengthens Libya’s ability to intercept migrants at sea.

Humanitarian organizations, notably Amnesty International, have documented systematic abuse in Libyan detention camps, including torture, sexual and gender-based assault, and exploitation.

Yambio entered the Italian seas in a rubber dinghy in late June after four attempts. “I was sent back to horrible conditions in Libyan internment camps,” he claimed.

He said European states developed a mechanism that pushes away migrants seeking protection. “I’m one,” he said.

In the absence of state-led missions, humanitarian organizations conduct SAR. Italy’s newly elected far-right government failed to provide safe harbor to three NGO rescue ships this month, denying over 250 people rescued at sea permission to disembark.

A 2017 EU-sponsored pact between Italy and Libya granting the Libyan coastguard cash and technical support was automatically renewed on November 2.

Humanitarian organizations under the umbrella group Solidarity with Refugees in Libya protested in cities around Italy before the renewal to demand its suspension.

Tiziano Schiena, an activist at Mediterranea Saving Humans, stated that although Yambio’s group has grown to encompass 11 nations and practices “grassroots democracy,” Europe is “doing the opposite by setting up borders.”

“We can’t tolerate this,” he told Al Jazeera from Geneva.

The UN General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on December 10, 1948, after the Nazis exterminated millions of Jews.

Schiena says Libya is Europe’s “greatest humiliation since World War II,” requiring the continent to confront its racial intolerance.

Reaching Italy doesn’t erase Yambio’s years of pain. “There’s no room to remain mute or start over,” he stated.

The stories of those detained in Libya “must be shared to common people and in schools so we may influence decision-making and change the way political agreements are drawn.”

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