Libya - In the latest expansion to its activities, Libya’s Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM) launched a Detention Centre Profile component on 14 June 2017.

The first round of assessments profiled 13 detention centres across the East, West and South of Libya, and more centres will be added in future data collection rounds.

DTM’s newly launched Detention Centre Profiles collect information from across detention centres managed by Libya’s Directorate for Combating Illegal Migration (DCIM).

Three of the 13 centres held over 500 migrants present at the day of assessment: Trig al Shook, Gharyan Al Hamra and Trig al Seka.

Seven had health services available and nearly all of them had referral services to hospital for ill migrants.

Using a standard set of indicators DTM provides baseline assessments into the facilities and infrastructure of certain detention centres, including the functionality of electricity, lighting, latrines, the ventilation system, and laundry facilities.

Simultaneously, DTM aims to provide all partners with a snapshot of the demographic characteristics and health conditions of migrants in detention centres on the day of assessment.

In nine centres, three had either no ventilation system or only ones working irregularly. In nine of 13 centres migrants enjoyed access to outdoor spaces less than half the day. Migrants also were reported to have irregular access to drinking water in three centres: Benghazi al Wafiah, Salah Aldin and Tobruk.

Other indicators focus on migrants’ level of access to various types of services, including legal, medical, health, psychosocial and family tracing services. They also gather information on migrants’ ability to access outdoor spaces, on the frequency of meal provision in the centre, and on the types of illnesses, if any, that migrants had been recently affected by.

“IOM’s DTM programme is a suite of tools that constantly seek new and innovative ways to share information for the benefit of all humanitarian actors,” explained DTM Programme Coordinator Daniel Salmon. “Libya’s latest initiative is drawn from similar exercises rolled out in countries such as South Sudan to provide better and more routine data on internally displaced person (IDP) sites. Libya’s Detention Centre Profiles is a new initiative that aims to deliver routine and reliable data on Libya’s DCIM detention centres.”   

The detention centre assessment will be conducted on a monthly basis, with more centres to be added in future rounds. The detention centre profiles are available on the Libya DTM website.

Composed of Mobility Tracking, Flow Monitoring, Event Tracker and Detention Centre modules, Libya’s Displacement Tracking Matrix collects data on mobile populations in Libya to facilitate evidence-based humanitarian and policy interventions. All reports, methodologies and datasets are available at: www.globaldtm.info/libya.

Libya’s Detention Centre profiling assessments were funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID).

For further information, please contact Daniel Salmon at IOM Libya, Tel: +21629235097, Email: dsalmon@iom.int