Fake coastguards and taxi cabs fuel Libya slave trade
YAOUNDE: When uniformed men boarded the overloaded rubber dingy carrying Christelle Timdi and her boyfriend to a new life in Europe she thought the Italian coastguard had come to rescue them. But the men took out guns and began to shoot. “Many people fell in the sea,” the 32-year-old Cameroonian said as she described seeing her boyfriend, Douglas, falling in the water and disappearing into the darkness. The gunmen took Timdi and her fellow passengers back to Libya where they were locked up, raped, beaten and forced to make calls to their families back home for ransom payments to secure their freedom.
Timdi, who flew back to Cameroon last week, told her story as international outcry escalated over a video which appeared to show African migrants being traded as slaves in Libya. Libya’s UN-backed government has said it is investigating and has promised to bring the perpetrators to justice. Timdi said she had not seen the footage broadcast by CNN, but had witnessed the trade in humans while in Libya. “I saw it with my own eyes,” she said, describing how she had seen a Senegalese man buying an African migrant. Libya is the main jumping off point for migrants trying to reach Europe by boat. Timdi said many traffickers posed as marine guards, police officers and taxi drivers to ensnare victims.
Raped and beaten
There were around 130 other migrants on her boat when the gunmen opened fire in the middle of the night, Timdi said. After being taken back to Libya they were locked in an abandoned factory building where men would grab and rape the girls and women - and sometimes even the men. “We tried to hide the younger girls among us,” Timdi said, describing the terrifying moments when the guards would scour the room with torches, searching for their next victims.
“I was heavily pregnant - that’s why I wasn’t raped. And it’s all done in front of others - they say it’s so that you know what will happen to you if you don’t pay up.” Timdi said the facilities used by traffickers appeared to be well organized and guarded, adding that most people inside wore fake police or military uniforms. “The place was surrounded by army-style vehicles with guns ready to fire, so we didn’t dare try and escape.” Timdi’s family paid 1 million CFA francs ($1,800), frantically collected from relatives and friends, to free her. But she said ransoms were no guarantee of safety. —Reuters