Benghazi, Libya's new hub for illegal immigration to the US (2024)

Shortly after midnight on May 18, a Boeing 777 operated by the Libyan airline Ghadames Air took off from Benina International Airport in Benghazi, the largest city in eastern Libya and landed 14 hours later at an airport in Managua, the capital of Nicaragua. According to the Nicaraguan television channel 100% Noticias, 367 passengers of Indian nationality were on board. On May 23, the same aircraft made the same flight with 298 Indians. All intended to continue on to the US.

Earlier, on February 28 and March 14, two similar flights left the Libyan capital, Tripoli; no information about the passengers' nationalities has been disclosed. When contacted, neither the Nicaraguan Ministry of Foreign Affairs nor the country's airport authorities responded to Le Monde's inquiries about what appears to be the opening of a new route to the US border for undocumented immigrants.

There has been no official confirmation of these new flights but Managua's Augusto C. Sandino International Airport is now recognized as a major transit point for would-be immigrants to the US. In December 2023, a plane carrying more than 300 Indians had already been grounded at Paris-Vatry Airport, east of the capital, on "suspicion of human trafficking" during a technical stopover between Dubai and the Nicaraguan capital.

Since 2021, "Nicaragua has opened its borders to nationals of politically difficult countries, allowing them to come without a visa" in return for payment on arrival, explained Manuel Orozco, a migration expert at The Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington-based think tank. According to the data he has collected, 1,145 charter flights have landed in Managua since May 2023, coming mainly from Latin America but also from Casablanca, Morocco, and – recently – from Benghazi.

$1,200 package

The regime of Daniel Ortega, Nicaragua's "anti-imperialist" president, benefits from these arrivals both politically – by adding to the problems at the border between Mexico and the US, the latter of which has been issuing sanctions against Nicaraguan individuals and entities since 2021 – and economically. Orozco estimates the revenue generated by the visa penalties that Managua imposes on undocumented immigrants at around $30 million, without even counting all the revenue linked to their transit through the country (transport, accommodation).

With this new route, Nicaragua has joined forces with Libya, one of the main crossing points for African migration to Europe, a path that emerged as an alternative to the routes via Turkey after they were blocked by the signing of an agreement between Brussels and Ankara in 2016. Exiles from Asia, most of whom arrive by air, have turned to Libyan airports, which have become hubs for smuggling networks.

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