Yasine, Nazir and Ahmed flee their homeland, Libya. They wander like ghosts through the city of Tunis, carrying a heavy secret. Their path crosses that of a handful of investigators, Libyan resistance fighters exiled in Tunisia. Emad and Ramadan follow the trail of these wounded men in order to collect and gather a fragile word.

Taken together, the testimonies they gather outline an unprecedented crime: the systematic and massive rape of Libyan men since the Revolution

An unspeakable crime that history is still trying to erase.

Rape has become a weapon of mass destruction in Bosnia, Rwanda, Congo and Syria over the past thirty years. While women and children are the first targets, in the Libyan powder keg, this war crime, which has become a system, strikes men first. As Libyan exiles in Tunis, Emad, an activist, and Ramadan, a prosecutor, try to gather evidence of a barbarity whose victims remain imprisoned in the unspeakable. Through persistence, these activists, helped by Céline Bardet, an international lawyer, obtain the first detailed accounts of a handful of men who suffered these tortures. Shattered, the ghostly Yacine, Nazir and Ahmed give appalling snippets of their history and their ransacked intimacy. With broken voices, they tell of the clandestine prisons, the violence, humiliations and tortures committed by the armed militia in a country plunged into chaos since the fall of Gaddafi. In this endless cycle of organised horror, migrants are also used. Ali, who has just been released, testifies to the widespread rape of the Tawergha, an ostracised black tribe.

Humanity crushed
Following in the footsteps of these isolated activists who are fighting at the risk of their lives for justice before the international courts, Cécile Allegra lifts the veil on the extent of this war crime, which has been totally hidden until now. Through the testimonies and what they reveal about the methods used, the abuses experienced and their effectiveness in crushing the humanity of the prisoners, the hell of a devastated country emerges, which generates kidnappings, revenge and torture. By giving voice to the victims, this deeply moving film is part of a patient and difficult quest for the truth, in the hope, one day, of putting a stop to this deadly mechanism.

Documentary by Cécile Allegra (France, 2018, 1h09mn) - Coproduction: ARTE France, Cinétévé
OMCT Prize (World Organisation Against Torture), section "grands reportages", FIFDH 2018

*Selected for the Vues d'Afrique Festival 2023