Documentary: Libya’s Migrant Hell – A Deeply Powerful Plea

By Ross Kemp, Aired February 2017. British Broadcasting Channel.

Ross Kemp, investigative-journalist turns his attention to the deadliest migrant route in the world. The 1,000 miles of Libyan desert, a journey more dangerous than the sea, followed by the treacherous Mediterranean crossing from Tripoli to Italy in rubber boats unfit for purpose. Three thousand people make this journey every week. Twelve die each day.

A dinghy loaded with 120 refugees trying to reach Italy. (Photo: The Sun).

In Ross Kemp: Libya’s Migrant Hell, he tracks the route with his usual brawn studded with the occasional fleck of emotion. This is not nuanced film-making, but somehow that feels right for an issue so huge, horrifying and urgent; a bit of plain-spoken directness feels welcome.

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Beginning in the Sahara, where threats include smugglers, Isis training camps, armed militias and kidnappers, Kemp intercepts a truck rammed with 22 people.

Ruined houses in Libya. 2017. (Photo: GETTY Images).

“We are running for our lives,” one man explains. Later, he joins 30 men and women on a 350-mile desert stretch to the next handover point: a seven-hour journey travelling 70 mph in 45C heat.

Instantly sweating like a pig in his headscarf, Kemp declares: “I don’t think I could do it, that’s for sure.”