The Great Sand Sea is a perilous route for sub-Saharan migrants aiming for Europe. Photo / Getty Images
They call it the Great Sand Sea, and the name is no exaggeration.
The area of the Sahara that stretches from western Egypt to eastern Libya is a vast expanse of nothingness, where hot wind whips the sand into rippled ridges like ocean waves, and dust storms can entomb living things in seconds.
Very little survives here: just tiny desert plants that cling to scraps of moisture, and a handful of creatures that have adapted to the conditions over millennia. Certainly it is no place for human beings, which is why there are so many tragic remains.
Desiccated bones poking out of scorched sand, bleached white by the fierce sun, stand as a ghoulish warning of the terrible fate awaiting those who try to traverse the terrain.
But this is the route hundreds of thousands of sub-Saharan Africans take in the hope of making it to the West, and perhaps a new life in the United Kingdom.
Every week, illegal immigrants from Sudan, Eritrea, Chad, and Niger pour across the border into Libya, which they hope will live up to its name as the “Gateway to Europe”.
The Libyan authorities have a choice. Do they do what the French are accused of in Calais, and wave the migrants onward, or do they do the UK and other target destinations a favour, and attempt to stop Libya being used as a transit route?
With no support from the UK Government, and very little from the European Union, they do the second.
For the Libyan National Army, which oversees much of the effort, it is a war on land and sea, focused on entry points in the south, in particular the triangle of desert where Sudan, Egypt and Libya meet; and exit points along the Mediterranean coast.
The aim is to catch and detain as many migrants as possible long before they reach any beach.
Once or twice a month, long convoys of border force Jeeps push their way from the end of the last tarmac road in Libya into the Sahara in search of the living and the dead.
During a routine operation last week, five corpses were recovered. Not much was left of the poor souls whose dream ended in the heat: just skeletons and skulls, held together by fragments of clothes.
Wearing masks and gloves, volunteers from the Red Crescent did what they could to recover the bodies with dignity, slipping them into black bags for proper burial.
It is a wretched job but one the authorities are growing used to: as many as one in four migrants who try to cross the desert perish.
They pay people traffickers for seats on pick-up trucks, but like the Channel boats, the vehicles are often unfit for purpose and dangerously overloaded. When they get stuck in the sand, passengers are forced to walk.
What the Libyan National Army says it really needs to manage a crisis that spans thousands of square kilometres is helicopters and drones, but they can’t have them, because of United Nations sanctions.
The long-running ban on imports of anything that might have military use is a legacy of the chaos that engulfed Libya after the fall of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.
At the time, British Prime Minister David Cameron, who led an international campaign of air and missile strikes against the dictator’s forces, believed he had helped free the country from a dictator.
On the streets of Benghazi, grateful crowds greeted the-then Prime Minister as a hero. He promised to stand by them as they rebuilt their country. Instead, Libya descended into violent chaos and he and the rest of the international community ran for cover.
Today, western Libya remains a dangerous mess of warring militias, drug dealers and illegal weapons.
Ironically, this is where the internationally recognised “Government of National Unity” is based. The name could not be more misplaced, for the authority barely controls Tripoli, never mind anywhere else.
Based in the most unstable part of the country, the Administration is a temporary and seemingly ineffectual fix, pending national elections that never seem to come.
By contrast, peace seems to have returned to the east, where Benghazi is booming. Today the city centre is a relaxed scene of seafood restaurants; coffee shops plying freshly baked croissants flavoured with honey and almonds and outdoor cafes in leafy courtyards.
New shopping precincts gleam with upscale boutiques selling sports and fashion wear. Some big brands – I spotted Adidas, Mamuso and Omega – are here already; others are coming.
Traffic is bad, but the roads are noticeably better than Britain’s.
It could be Tunis, or old Dubai, not least because United Arab Emirates state developer EMAAR seems to be everywhere.
Apparently a deal has been struck with the Emiratis to develop some 10km of the coastline. Construction is under way on luxury hotels, sleek residential and commercial towers – even a golf course.
Meanwhile, city planners are creating parks and lakes and building seven new bridges. In short, a city with a deeply troubled past is powering into a new era.
Such is the sense of renewal that it is hard to imagine that Isis once ran amok.
Locals are still haunted by the horrors they inflicted: severed heads hung from bridges; families forced to flee for their lives as RPGs pulverised residential neighbourhoods.
It was here that United States ambassador Christopher Stevens tragically lost his life with two CIA contractors when Islamic extremists attacked the American embassy in 2012.
A small section of the old city still looks like Gaza or Homs: bombed-out apartment blocks keeling sideways over piles of rubble. Flights of stairs left exposed when external walls were blown off dangle precariously from hollowed-out buildings.
There is talk of preserving a little bit of this as a monument to terrible times, but Benghazi has very decidedly moved on.
Officially, eastern Libya, which has the vast majority of the country’s oil and gas, is still controlled by the same general, Khalifa Haftar, whose forces drove out the jihadists five years ago, but power is now passing to his sons.
This younger generation has big ideas, and a very different leadership style.
Still in his 30s, Saddam Haftar, who heads the Libyan National Army, is a skydiver and adventure sports enthusiast with an Instagram page.
Described as a moderniser, he is gravitating away from historical ties with Russia and building new relationships with Western allies.
In recent months he has made official visits to Washington (where he met senior Trump adviser Massad Bulous), Italy, and France.
Helping the West to stem the tidal wave of illegal immigrants heading from the Sahel to Europe is a small part of a wider effort to show that Libya is once again ready to play a positive role on the world stage.
Cut off at the knees by sanctions that are doubtless well justified by the chaos in Tripoli, but seem unfair in the east, immigration authorities do their best to help the EU and the UK.
Every month, they return hundreds of Sudanese refugees who might otherwise reach Britain, where 99% are granted asylum.
Without fanfare, they are simply sent back to parts of their country that the authorities deem safe.
In exclusive interviews with the Telegraph, navy and coastguard officials explained that they have no qualms about stopping boats, sometimes enlisting the help of merchant vessels.
They work without the advantage of the state-of-the-art surveillance systems and fancy search and rescue ships that British and French border forces have at their disposal but choose not to use to turn around dinghies in the Channel.
Because of sanctions, neither the navy nor the coastguard can import replacement parts for their ageing fleet.
Despite suboptimal kit, there is no shortage of determination. In Haftar’s Benghazi, “smashing the gangs” means almost literally that. Slick videos of raids on people smugglers show military men using battering rams to break down the doors of criminal hideouts.
In the UK, left-wingers often talk about tackling Britain’s illegal immigration crisis “upstream”. I have never really listened: “fixing Africa” seems such a counsel of despair.
Yet there is something in it. What part of supporting practical measures on the front line, like Libya, does not make sense?
Charities and NGOs will wring their hands about human rights, and they may have a point.
While Libyan immigration chiefs insist they treat detainees well, their idea of what they call “international standards” may not be the same as the UKs’.
When they read about the fancy hotel accommodation and other luxuries Britain offers asylum-seekers, they think it is mad.
Yet the leadership in this part of Libya wants the world to see how the country is changing. They are smart enough to know that human rights horrors do not attract foreign investors or luxury brands.
I flew into Libya feeling nervous, having travelled against Foreign Office advice. I flew out wondering why the east is still considered dangerous.
Google will tell you that the Haftars are warlords, and it is true that they were. They fought a war against Islamic extremists, and they won.
Doubtless there are still some dark undercurrents to their modus operandi, as there tend to be in authoritarian regimes with great natural wealth.
It is the same in many much glitzier countries, with thriving tourism industries and global business hubs. Yet under strong leaders with big visions, locals can and do live good lives.
As ordinary citizens go about their business in the Benghazi sunshine, untroubled by beardy nutters using AK47s to enforce sick interpretations of Islam, I suspect they’re rather grateful to those now in charge.
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