The medical organisation Doctors Without Borders (known by its French acronym, MSF) has said it was ordered to leave Libya by November 9, with no reason given for its expulsion.
MSF had already been forced to suspend its activities in the country in March, and said in a statement on Wednesday that it was told to leave in a recent letter from the Libyan Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
“No reason has been given to justify our expulsion and the process remains unclear,” Steve Purbrick, who heads MSF’s programmes in Libya, said in the statement.
“We believe that MSF still has an important role to play in Libya, particularly in the diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis, in supporting the Libyan health system, but also in providing access to healthcare for refugees and migrants who are excluded from care and subject to arbitrary detention and serious violence,” he said.
Purbrick said MSF’s registration with the United Nations-recognised government remained valid, and the Geneva-based organisation still hoped to find a “positive solution” to the situation.
MSF said that in collaboration with the Libyan health authorities, it had carried out more than 15,000 medical consultations last year.
In 2023, it provided emergency medical aid following flash floods in the coastal city of Derna that killed thousands of people.
Libya is split between the UN-recognised government in Tripoli, led by Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, and a rival administration in the east.
The North African country has remained divided since a NATO-backed revolt toppled and killed longtime leader, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, in 2011.
In March, MSF’s premises were closed by Libya’s Internal Security Agency, and several of its staff faced “interrogation”, it said.
“This wave of repression also affected nine other humanitarian organisations operating in the west of the country,” said MSF.
“In a context of increasing obstruction of NGO intervention, drastic cuts in international aid funding, and the reinforcement of European border policies in collaboration with the Libyan authorities, there are now no international NGOs providing medical care to refugees and migrants in western Libya,” it said.
Founded in 1971, MSF says it has more than 67,000 staff working in more than 70 countries.
