FOUR years after the uprising that led to the ouster of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, Libya is splintering. Following Gaddafi’s defeat by Libyan rebels and a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO)-led coalition, political-administrative structures set up after 2011 are collapsing. Economic life is at a standstill. One after the other, the European diplomatic missions are leaving, so are the United Nations (UN) and many non-governmental organisations. The legacy of the fall of Gaddafi is the continuing lack of any state institutions coupled with a fragmented security architecture that has been divided into a myriad of armed groups, militias and rival factions. These have left the army weak and the country subject to a civil war that has left more than 3 500 people dead. At the heart of the civil war is a conflict between two rival governments in Tripoli and in Tobruk, with only the Tobruk government having UN recognition as legitimate, but left controlling less than half of the country and half of one of the three main cities. Tripoli, the capital, Benghazi and the other big cities, those sheltering half of the country’s seven million inhabitants, are the stages for battles among rival armed groups. And over the last couple of weeks, the violence has reached a dangerous new level. Within the cities, forces attack each other with heavy weaponry, while shootings have rendered both major airports, those of Tripoli and Benghazi, unusable. Partially burned down, a huge gas and fuel storage threatens to explode near the capital. The country is sinking into chaos, and many Libyans say things were better off during the era of Gaddafi. As the government’s control slips through their fingers and into the hands of the militia fighters, oil production has all, but stopped. Until the Gaddafi regime was deposed, Libya exported 1, 4 million barrels of oil a day. Now it is producing less than 200 000 barrels a day. With the economy moribund, the only growing industry has been militias. Militias hold 8 000 people in prisons, many of whom say they have been tortured. Some 40 000 people from the town of Tawergha south of Misrata were driven from their homes which have been destroyed. In this situation, people are desperate to get out of that terrible environment. Libya’s geographical proximity to Europe makes it the gateway for migrations through the Mediterranean Sea. Furthermore the chaos in the North African country makes it a perfect place for human trafficking networks to thrive. Libya’s uncontrolled long coast has become a magnet for smugglers and would-be migrants hoping to enter European nations as refugees. Africans make a dangerous journey across the Sahara desert from Senegal, Gambia, Nigeria, Niger and Mali. Further east from the horn of Africa come the Ethiopians, Somalis and Eritreans, all of whom suffer from Western instigated destruction of their lands. So many Syrians have fled the NATO-sponsored war on their nation that neighbouring countries Lebanon and Jordan have barricaded themselves to prevent them from entering. Now Syrians fly first to the Sudan and wait to be smuggled into Europe through Libya. According to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), last year alone, more than 3 200 people died while attempting to reach Italy by boat from Libya. Over 280 000 people entered the EU illegally last year, many fleeing conflict in Libya, Syria and repression in Eritrea. Italy is struggling to cope with waves of migrants fleeing Libya in boats across the Mediterranean. According to new figures from the IOM, more than 102 000 immigrants have arrived in Europe by sea so far this year and about half of them are from Libya. Before it was turned to rubble by NATO’s machinations, Libya was an example of the prosperity all African nations might be able to experience. In 1967 Colonel Gaddafi inherited one of the poorest nations in Africa; however, by the time he was assassinated by the West, Libya was unquestionably Africa‘s wealthiest nation. It had the highest GDP per capita and life expectancy in Africa and less people lived below the poverty line than in the Netherlands. In 2009, the CIA’s World Factbook showed the average life expectancy of a Libyan to be 77 years. Under Gaddafi, per capita income in the country rose to more than US$11 000, the fifth highest in Africa. For over 40 years, Gaddafi promoted economic democracy and used the nationalised oil wealth to sustain progressive social welfare programmes for all Libyans. Libyans did not only enjoy free health care and free education, they also enjoyed free electricity and interest free loans. If a Libyan was unable to find employment after graduation, the State would pay that person the average salary of their profession. The price of petrol was around US$0, 14 per litre and 40 loaves of bread cost just US$0, 15. Money from oil proceeds was deposited directly into every Libyan citizen’s bank account.  There was no mass immigration from Libya at that time. While the EU grapples with how to address the worsening Mediterranean migrant crisis, they must tackle root causes, namely poverty, political instability, and civil war, all blamed on the US and NATO whose military interventions is destabilising North Africa. They created the mess; they must have the taste of their own medicine.