ZUWARAH, Libya — As a pair of black SUVs sped toward us across the coastal scrubland of western Libya, it was hard not to feel a twinge of apprehension.
After all, in the lawlessness that prevails four years after the fall of Col. Moammar Gadhafi, truckfuls of men in black balaclavas are often the prelude to a starring role in an ISIL beheading movie.
Yet despite their menacing appearance, the only people the Masked Men of Zuwarah are trying to scare are the people smugglers, who have turned the port into North Africa’s most notorious hub for migrants crossing the Mediterranean. During the past three years alone, tens of thousands of people have set sail from Zuwarah’s shores, the nearest point on Libya’s 1,600-kilometre coastline to the Italian island of Lampedusa.
Now, fed up with the damage to their town’s reputation, the Masked Men have taken matters into their own hands. “People think of Zuwarah as a symbol of smuggling, but we are also now a symbol of the fight against it,” said Adam Abza, a spokesman for the group, which smashed its first people-smuggling ring in late August. “We are doing a job that Europe should really be doing itself.”
Sceptics claim their involvement is little more than a PR strategy, or that it will simply displace the trade to rival smuggling hubs such as nearby Zliten, where 40 bodies were found last weekend.
Also yet to be convinced are EU officials, who have been in talks with the group but have yet to offer any help. Set up as a volunteer police force in Zuwarah in 2012, the Specialized Intervention Squad, to give them their official name, are now the main crime-fighting force. One reason they wear masks is to protect their members from retribution from Zuwarah’s powerful smuggling gangs.
People think of Zuwarah as a symbol of smuggling, but we are also now a symbol of the fight against it
They bit off more than they could chew when they first tried to tackle the problem in late 2013 as the smugglers they arrested simply bribed their way out of Libyan courts.
Two months ago, though, it was the smugglers’ turn to push their luck. Yet another boat capsized, this time with 189 bodies washing up — so many that they had to be buried hastily in a mass grave on the city’s outskirts.
The next day, the Masked Men arrested three alleged ringleaders, and while there is still no reliable court to put them before, they say a rubric has now been crossed.
“After that sad incident, we took a vow as a city,” said Sadiq Nanis, Zuwarah’s deputy mayor. “We said this was never going to happen again.”