By AG AHMEDOU MOHAMED
LIBYA: THE STATELESSNESS OF THE TUAREGS, A POLICY OF DELAY.
In southern Libya, thousands of Tuareg families have lived without statehood for decades. Research by political scientist Souad Akhaty Alamin, published in the Egyptian scientific journal “Eurasian,” demonstrates that this situation is not an administrative dysfunction, but the product of a governance strategy.
A people rendered invisible by the administration:
In the vast Fezzan region of southern Libya, comprised of four major provinces—Sebha, Ubari, Ghat, and Ghadames—entire generations live in a state of suspended existence. Neither fully recognized nor completely excluded, thousands of Tuareg families are kept in an administrative gray area where legal identity becomes an endless negotiation.
They have been there since the 1950s, long before Libyan independence in 1951, and long before the effective extension of Tripoli’s authority into the Sahara. Yet, despite decades of continuous presence, many of their citizenship applications, submitted as early as the 1970s, remain unanswered.
In a dense and rigorous scholarly article, researcher Souad Akhaty Alamin deconstructs a widely held belief: that of mere bureaucratic backlog. Her thesis is more radical and more unsettling. Administrative delays, she writes, are in fact a deliberate policy.
Statelessness as a State Strategy:
This study is based on several years of fieldwork (2023-2026), nearly fifty interviews, and an in-depth analysis of Libyan nationality law. It highlights a coherent mechanism, repeated across regimes, from Muammar Gaddafi to post-2011 Libya. Three main dynamics structure this shadowy policy:
The reversal of the burden of proof:
In a state governed by the rule of law, it is up to the administration to prove that an individual does not meet the conditions for nationality. In Libya, this logic is reversed. Tuareg families must prove, generation after generation, that they have the right to exist legally. Residency, civil status documents, tribal testimonies: everything is provided. Yet, the files remain stalled. Worse still, applicants are often administratively reclassified as “Malian” or “Nigerian,” without these states recognizing them.
The result is “manufactured statelessness.”
The second paradox is the post-2011 constitutional situation:
Since the fall of Gaddafi, an absurd institutional situation has taken hold. The authorities claim they do not have the power to grant citizenship. But they retain the power to suspend applications, overturn previous decisions, and open investigations into civil status.
In other words, the state cannot include, but it can exclude.
This paradox creates an administrative machine where no resolution is possible, yet control remains absolute.
The third point is the automation of exclusion with the National Identification Number (NIN):
The introduction of the National Identification Number (NIN) in 2013 marked a decisive turning point. Before this reform, Tuaregs registered in “temporary” registers had partial recognition, meaning access to school, sometimes local employment, and a minimal administrative existence. The NIN abruptly closed this door.
Without this number, there is no registration with the civil registry.
No access to banking services.
No formal economic integration.
Exclusion becomes systemic, automated, and irreversible.
A revealing double standard:
One of the most striking contributions of the study concerns what Souad Akhaty Alamin calls a “structural double standard.”
In civilian life, administrative requirements are rigid:
It is impossible to open a bank account.
Unable to obtain formal employment.
Unable to regularize one’s status.
But when it comes to military recruitment, these requirements suddenly become flexible. Individuals considered administratively “non-existent” can be mobilized as soldiers.
Excluded as citizens, mobilized as resources.
A cascading exclusion:
The consequences of this administrative statelessness are profound and intergenerational:
Children not registered at birth.
Limited access to higher education.
Impossibility of legal property ownership.
Economic marginalization and increased vulnerability to informal networks. This phenomenon produces what the literature calls structural violence: domination without direct violence, but with lasting and systemic effects.
A national security issue ignored.
Contrary to popular belief, this marginalization does not stabilize the Libyan state. It weakens it. The study shows that former public officials excluded after the NIN reform have joined informal economies; some have turned to smuggling or migration networks. By keeping an entire population outside the social contract, the state itself creates the conditions for chronic instability.
A Political Reading of Citizenship:
Beyond the Tuareg case, this article contributes to a broader reflection on citizenship in Africa. As legal scholar Bronwen Manby points out, nationality law is often used as an instrument of political power.
In Libya, the “Tuareg issue” becomes a tool for demographic control, a political lever, a means of avoiding sensitive decisions.
Breaking the Impasse: A Rights-Based Solution:
Faced with this situation, Souad Akhaty Alamin proposes a human rights-based approach. She calls for recognizing long-term residency as the primary criterion, valuing the civic contribution of populations, ending the logic of perpetual suspicion, and administratively reintegrating excluded populations.
Rehabilitating Existence:
The major contribution of this research is to shift the perspective. The Tuareg of Fezzan are not stateless by accident. They are in this state because a system keeps them there.
What this investigation reveals is less an administrative failure than a political rationale for this delay.
And an underlying question:
How long can a state keep a portion of its population in a state of non-existence without paying the price?
Biography:
Souad Akhaty Alamin is an independent researcher and community activist based in the Fezzan region of Libya. She is a member of the Tuareg community. With over ten years of professional experience in protection, civil registration, field research, monitoring, and evaluation across Libya, she has collaborated with international humanitarian and migration organizations such as UNHCR, IOM, WFP, and EU-funded programs. Her research focuses on administrative exclusion, statelessness, the rights of indigenous peoples, and governance in southern Libya.
12-04-26