The Resettlement Conspiracy: Do Africans Really Want to Live in Our Desert—or Do Politicians Just Want Us to Think So?

For years, I’ve heard elaborate theories about a grand international conspiracy to settle millions of sub-Saharan Africans in Libya’s southern regions. And each time, I’ve wondered: if the migrants themselves had a say in this so-called “resettlement plot,” they’d probably laugh at us. While Libyan politicians are busy accusing each other of collusion with foreign agendas, no one seems to ask the most basic question: why would a migrant travel thousands of kilometers from Addis Ababa, Lagos, or elsewhere cities with populations exceeding 10 million just to settle in areas that lack enough resources even for their original inhabitants, many of whom are leaving for Tripoli, Misrata, or Benghazi?

The uncomfortable, unpopular answer is simple: there is no international conspiracy capable of turning Sabha, Murzuq, or Qatrun into attractive destinations for migrants. Even basic services water, electricity, healthcare are absent in much of the south. Thousands of Libyans have already fled north in search of livable conditions. So how could any plot convince Africans to compete over lands that Libyans themselves are abandoning?

A migrant from Kinshasa (9 million), Abidjan (4 million), or Accra (3 million) doesn’t see Tripoli or Zawiya as a dream destination. These cities are merely waypoints. The dream is Europe not some mirage oasis in the Sahara stripped of life’s essentials. Let’s be clear: these migrants pay smugglers thousands of dollars not to end up in Kufra, but to reach Europe.

European governments don’t want these migrants. Apart from a few human rights groups, public sentiment across Europe is perfectly fine with letting migrants drown in the Mediterranean or die of thirst in the desert. But the idea that Europe is spending billions to turn Libya’s southern towns into global metropolises? That’s pure fantasy a political accusation turned into a magical weapon in Libya’s dirty political warfare.

In the west, the government accuses its eastern rivals of selling out to foreign powers and warns that only allegiance to their leadership can protect us from demographic “invasion.” Do their rivals stay silent? Of course not. They hurl the same accusations back: “She blames me for her own disease,” as the saying goes. Each side claims the other is selling out the land to foreign settlers. 

Meanwhile, the people? They’re left fighting imaginary ghosts, while their real wealth is stolen in plain sight. The very politicians who claim to be protecting Libya from foreign infiltration are the ones using migrants as bargaining chips in their negotiations with the European Union.

Dear ordinary citizen: the African migrant is not an invader, not an agent of conquest. He is a poor human being fleeing a reality that may be even worse than yours. Ask yourself: if you were in his shoes, would you choose to stay in Ghat or try to reach Italy?

Instead of confronting the real causes of the crisis security chaos, economic collapse, political fragmentation we blame a fictional foreign plot that seeks to replace us. And while we chase phantoms, the same political actors exploiting the migration issue are failing to build even the most basic border infrastructure or improve conditions in the south enough to make locals want to stay.

Brother, do not let hatred blind your judgment. That young African man you see in the street is not your enemy. He is a mirror reflecting the failures and corruption of governments across the continent. And he shows you what your own future and that of your children might look like if we don’t stop the bleeding and start building a real state.

Let’s stop using migrants as scapegoats. Let’s demand real solutions: national reconciliation to end the bloodshed, economic reform to revive the east and west, and development in the south so that its people can finally thrive.

Let us pause, even briefly, with our own humanity. We are not better than the migrants. We carry the same wounds injustice, oppression, corruption and we dream the same dreams: peace, freedom, and dignity.

Before you fall for the conspiracy narrative crafted by feuding politicians, remember: southern Libya can barely support its own residents how could it possibly absorb millions of others? This so-called “threat” is nothing but a smokescreen to hide the ongoing theft of our land and wealth. 

Let us end this farce. Let’s refuse to be puppets in their theatre. Let’s scream at them: enough lies, enough manipulation, enough theft build us a country worth staying in, or let us leave like the very migrants you claim are invading us.

The real absurdity isn’t just in believing that Africans want to settle in our desert it’s in believing that our desert can even sustain them. Politicians keep feeding us illusions because they can’t face the shameful truth: Libya is collapsing. And instead of saving it, we invent fake enemies so that when we “defeat” them, we can feel like we’ve won even if all that’s left is ruins.