Libyans seek cause of Aids rise

By Annette Mackenzie
BBC Focus On Africa magazine

Tripoli is suffering from massive unemployment

Widespread unemployment amongst young Libyans and immigrants is being blamed for an "alarming" surge in HIV/Aids cases in the country.

Libyan hospital researchers say the majority of cases are coming from infected needles used by frustrated immigrants - many of whom arrived in the last few years.

This followed Libyan leader Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi's decision to open the country's borders to other Africans.

"Most of the cases are coming from young people because of drug abuse," said Dr Abdurraman Fuarah, head of laboratory development at the Tripoli Medical Centre, a top research hospital.

"It's part of our society; it's a very serious problem nowadays. I feel it comes from outside, brought by Libyans sometimes and by the foreigners."

'No work'

The situation comes as a result of the poor state of Libya's economy, which has unemployment currently at 30%.

Consequently many turn to crime and drug use, which is spreading the virus.

"There is no work for foreigners here," confirmed Onome, a 28-year-old Nigerian who has been in Libya for two years.

"There are lots of Nigerians here, but there are no jobs. That's why we see so many of them committing crimes.

It is proving impossible for many immigrants to live legitimately

"Some of them sell drugs, they get involved in prostitution. But if there was work then nobody would practice such acts."

Libya has a history of ethnic tension between the six million population and the one million immigrants in the country.

In 2000 this led to widespread rioting in Tripoli and other cities in which some reports suggest several hundred immigrants were killed. Many thousands fled the country.

The immigrants come mainly from Sudan, Chad, Tunisia, Nigeria and Egypt.

Libya's government acknowledges the problem of unemployment which it blames in part on the immigrants.

"There is contradiction in the Libyan economy because while we have unemployment we are giving jobs to foreigners," said Libya's Economic Minister Shukri Ghanem.

"The government should think of solving this."

The government is desperate to stimulate the economy to help alleviate the unemployment problem, and recently has begun taking steps to "reinterpret" Colonel Gaddafi's Green Book, which - among other things - outlines the way Libya's economy is supposed to work.

Now, much accepted wisdom - even within high-ranking ministers - is that the Green Book has been misunderstood.

The original system was kept going by oil revenue, but there is now widespread acknowledgement that this is unsustainable.

"For many years, the emphasis was on the public sector," Ghanem said.

"Now we are changing this emphasis to enable the private sector to play it's good part in the economy."

Whether this change will mean more jobs within Libya remains to be seen, but there is no doubting the message - Libya is trying to change.

But equally there is no doubting the message from the country's immigrants standing with sponges up and down the streets of Tripoli.

Their advice to anyone else planning to join them is simple - "don't come".

The full version of this article appears in the July-September 2003 issue of BBC Focus On Africa magazine