Hunting Warhead Hunting Warhead is coming back, but first: Real talk on high-risk reporting
Jun 5, 2025
Ian Urbina, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and founder of the Outlaw Ocean Project, discusses his daring investigative work along the world's oceans. He reveals the chilling truths of forced labor and the impact of EU policies on migrants in Libya. Urbina recounts a harrowing experience of being abducted while reporting on abuses, shedding light on the brutal conditions faced by workers on distant-water fishing fleets. With firsthand accounts and gritty storytelling, he emphasizes the connection between these dark realities and the seafood we consume.
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Aliyu Kande: A Climate Migrant's Ordeal
- Aliyu Kande, from Guinea-Bissau, left home as a climate migrant to reach Europe and was captured and returned to Libya.
- He was detained at the notorious Al-Mabani center, exemplifying the wider migrant gulag system in Libya.
Europe Outsources Migration Control
- The EU is outsourcing migration control by funding and equipping Libyan forces to stop departures from Libya.
- Frontex provides surveillance while the Libyan Coast Guard and militias act as the naval and ground arms of this effort.
Detention Centers Run As Extortion Businesses
- Libyan detention centers operate like businesses with multiple revenue streams: aid funds, rented detainee labor, and extortion.
- Extortion is the largest income source: detainees are released only after relatives wire ransoms.