and testimonials about the risks of backway migration from The Gambia to Europe reduces migration intentions in the five years after the information treatment. Similarly, Tjaden and Dunsch (2021) find that peer-to-peer information transmission on the dangers and potential risks associated with irregular migration raised risk awareness and reduced irregular migration intentions in Senegal. Importantly, Bertoli et al. (2020) emphasize that acquiring information about destinations can be costly for migrants. As a consequence, migration flows from countries in which collecting information is more costly or people have stronger priors are less responsive to variations in economic conditions in destination countries.<sup>7</sup> Our paper differs from these previous studies in two main aspects. First, this paper is the first to empirically assess the impact of migration-related news articles in destination countries on the movement decision of migrants located in a (transit) developing country.<sup>8</sup> Second, in our analysis, we study the effect of changes in the _content_ of migration-related news (i.e., their sentiment) on migrants’ behavior, thus improving on previous studies using metrics for media access and exposure. We are also the first to use the GDELT dataset to study migration issues.<sup>9</sup> Finally, our paper contributes to the understanding of the evolution of the Libyan economy (Irhiam et al., 2023; Del Prete et al., 2023; Rahman and Di Maio, 2020; Di Maio et al., 2023) and of the migration phenomenon in the country after the fall of the Gaddafi regime (Di Maio et al., 2023). Moreover, by providing novel evidence on the determinants and the timing of migrants’ movements within Libya, our analysis is also related to studies looking at the dynamics of migration flows to Europe (Battiston, 2022; Deiana et al., 2024) and of international migration flows in Northern and Sub-Saharan African countries (Friebel et al., 2023; Di Maio et al., 2023).

# **3 Migration in Libya**

Libya is the country with the largest number of migrants in North Africa. In 2020, Libya hosted approximately 571,400 migrants, which corresponds to 12% of its total population (UN-DESA, 2020). Migrants in Libya are very heterogeneous in terms of nationality, background, motivation for migration, and preferred final destination (IOM, 2018b; UNHCR, 2019b).

Libya has been an important destination for migrants since the 1970s. For decades, people from Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa, and Asia have moved to Libya to work (UNHCR, 2019b). During the Gaddafi regime, economic migrants accounted for more than 50% of the total Libyan labor force (World Bank, 2015).

Since 2011, the security situation in Libya has been critical. The country has experienced a prolonged period of conflict which started with the fall of the Gaddafi regime and the First Libyan Civil War, and continued with the Second Libyan Civil War in 2014.<sup>10</sup> The conflict

> 7There is also some evidence that migrants’ knowledge of the political orientation at destination influences their location choices (see e.g., Bove et al., 2023). Bracco et al. (2018) show that the election of an anti-immigration mayor resulted in a decline in the number of immigrants entering the same town.

> 8For a discussion of the characteristics of transit migration, see Djaji ́c (2017) and Artuc and Ozden (2018).

> 9Until recently, GDELT has been mainly used to study macroeconomic or financial aspects (Bayer et al., 2020; Consoli et al., 2021). An exception is Deiana et al. (2023), who use the Pope’s message about the refugees’ situation to analyze how persuasion modifies beliefs.

> 10The Second Libyan Civil War is one of the geopolitically most relevant conflicts of our times (Fitzgerald and Toaldo, 2016). The conflict - which is still ongoing - is characterized by two rival governments claiming authority over Libya, one (based in Tripoli) controlling the Western part of the country and the other (based in Tobruk)

4