Stranded Nigerians return from Libya
Stories of abuse, fear on their arrival
SOME knelt and placed their foreheads to the ground in prayer. Several carried small children. After being stranded in Libya during a failed attempt to reach Europe, more than 250 Nigerian migrants were brought home and began sharing stories of abuse and fear.
“If they lock you up in a room, you hardly eat, that’s number one,” Ejike Ernest, one of the returnees, said on arrival late on Tuesday in Lagos.
“You’ll urinate there, you’ll defecate there and every morning, let me say three times a day, you will be severely beaten until you can pay the money to be freed.”
Nigeria’s government, its president appalled by recent CNN footage of a slave auction in Libya where migrant Africans were “sold like goats”, has committed to bringing its citizens home, as have a number of other African nations.
After disembarking from a plane chartered by Nigeria, the EU and the International Organisation for Migration, some of the newest arrivals looked exhausted, some clutching sleepy children.
Some were astonished by the way they had been treated.
“It’s heartbreaking, especially when I see a 13-year-old come with a baby,” said Abike Dabiri-Erewa, senior special assistant to Nigeria’s president on diaspora and foreign affairs. “One 14-year-old girl said she didn’t know how many men had slept with her, she can’t count… You look at them and wonder whether their lives can ever be the same again.”
The AU and member states will repatriate more than 15 000 migrants stranded in Libya by the end of the year amid outrage over the slave auction footage, AU deputy chairperson Kwesi Quartey said.
Between 400 000 and 700 000 African migrants are in dozens of camps across the chaotic North African country, often under inhumane conditions, AU Commission chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat told a summit of European and African leaders last week. Europe has struggled to stem the flow of tens of thousands of Africans making the dangerous crossing of the Mediterranean. But many Africans still make the journey, risking death and abuse, saying high unemployment and climate change have left them with little choice.
Another Nigerian recently repatriated spoke about his ordeal.
“I paid 500 000 naira (R18 800) to one Nigerian called Mr Fix It in 2016 to facilitate my illegal journey to Europe through Libya across the Mediterranean Sea. But on getting to Libya, he abandoned all of us to our fate,” the man said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of fears for his security.
He said he and others were detained by Libyan militia members and kept in a makeshift prison where they were tortured and starved. More than 10 Nigerians, including girls, were sold as slaves. He was lucky to be rescued by security forces, he said, and was repatriated in July.