Daily Times

Driven from home by desperation and blocked from European shores, hundreds of stranded migrants are resigned to staying in conflict-hit Libya, even while struggling to get by on odd jobs.

Every day at dawn, casual labourers from Eritrea, Niger, Sudan and other African nations gather under bridges in the capital Tripoli. Carrying worn tools, they slouch on the pavement waiting for one of the passing cars to stop, before crowding around the potential employer and clamouring for a day’s work. Many left countries riddled by conflict, poverty and corruption to try to cross the Mediterranean in rubber boats from Libya, a hub for irregular migration to Europe.

Those who were stopped by the coastguard and returned to the North African country, itself wracked by chaos for a decade, now form the backbone of an informal labour market.