Libya is becoming a crucible for would-be regional powers. The intractable civil war that has carved apart the oil-rich North African country is in reality a multisided chess match between a variety of outside actors, from Turkey to the United Arab Emirates, France and Egypt. On the ground, the battle involves thousands of Syrian militiamen, Sudanese mercenaries and Russian contractors. In the air, countries are deploying a growing number of drones, fighter jets and missiles. Earlier this month, U.N. Secretary General António Guterres warned that “foreign interference” was “reaching unprecedented levels.”

The fighting, which includes attacks on civilian homes and infrastructure, killed hundreds of civilians and displaced hundreds of thousands in and around Tripoli. Armed groups, some of them affiliated with the competing governments, carried out extrajudicial executions and abducted, tortured, and disappeared people. The country’s judiciary is in disarray and has collapsed in some areas, and police and law enforcement agencies affiliated with competing governments are dysfunctional. Hundreds of thousands of migrants and asylum seekers, most of them from West Africa and the Horn of Africa, including children often en route to Europe, risk torture, sexual assault, and forced labor by prison guards, coast guard forces, and smugglers while in Libya