Libyagate. Inchieste, dossier, ombre e silenzi

Libyagate is the name of an investigation conducted by some journalists even at the risk of their own personal safety and also the symbolic term for one of the darkest cases in recent years that took place in the Mediterranean Sea, cradle of civilizations, which remained largely out of general attention and often concealed. In a Libya already torn apart by the struggles between clans and factions, the dramas of migrants, men, women and children, tortured, raped, killed by traffickers, even in those governmental detention centers supported by Europe, including Italy, are being staged. Because the ‘great Libyan game’ is broad and transversal, ranging from human trafficking to arms trafficking, from drug smuggling to ghost fleets that smuggle oil, in an international network that from Libya reaches Europe through Malta and Italy, with the connivance of fixers and politicians and under the large umbrella of mafia organizations. It is a story bordering on the unbelievable, were it not for the extremely painful testimonies of those who escaped the massacres and the sea, for the numerous and explicit reports of the UN and the heartfelt appeals of its secretary, for the dossiers filed with the International Court of Justice and for the courageous investigations of journalists like Nello Scavo, author of this book. To read it, one wonders why we knew so little or nothing about it, why so few words have been spent so far on recounting this ‘eternal war’.