Would-be Migrant Held for Ransom in Libya Regrets Attempt to Reach Europe

'I will never try it again'

6,000-7,000 undocumented migrants in detention in Libya, UN says

By Anna Cunningham, CBC News 

Animals scavenge on mounds of garbage in Oworonshoki, a slum on the edge of Lagos, Nigeria. Oluwaseun Femi Ijitola, 34, risked his life to escape this place to try to make a better life for his wife and five-year-old daughter. (Anna Cunningham/CBC)

​The ground is thick with mud and sewage. Wooden planks and tires scatter the slum, making a precarious pathway.

"We have to walk," says Oluwaseun Femi Ijitola, a 34-year-old taxi driver known as Seun. "No vehicle can pass through."

There is a look of shame in his eyes as he surveys this forgotten corner of Lagos.

On the water's edge of Nigeria's largest city, in the neighbourhood of Oworonshoki, people live in dire poverty with no sanitation, electricity or any other facilities, in ramshackle shanties covered with dirty tarpaulin and cardboard that barely keeps out the seasonal rains.

The local church in Oworonshoki. (Anna Cunningham/CBC)

Chickens, goats and dog scavenge on mounds of garbage. Empty plastic bottles float on the tide of the Lagos Lagoon.

This is what Ijitola risked his life to escape when he became one of the hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants attempting to cross the Sahara desert to get to Europe and the hope of a better life. 

"I have a dream of schooling abroad, and that is why I went to Libya," he says.

A local elder stops to question us. Strangers don't come here unless they are officials sent to evict people, he says suspiciously.

Ijitola says the area is "very, very rough and tough" and unlocks a tiny padlock to his wooden shack. His wife and five-year-old daughter aren't here. 

"I sent them to be with the mother-in-law," he says. "I cannot feed them."

​Local "area boys" — as the criminal gangs that extort money and mete out casual violence are known — loiter outside, smoking marijuana and drinking beer.

"I won't be able to sleep here tonight," Ijitola says. "They will give me hassle."

Treacherous desert crossing

For Ijitola, the decision to leave Nigeria arose from a mundane problem: his car — the family's only source of income — broke down. In late 2016 he decided it was time to seek a better life.

He used what little money had to head north, taking a well-worn route. He took a bus more than 1,100 kilometres to Kano, in northern Nigeria, and from there across the border into Niger.

Children play amongst sewage and debris in the Lagos slum. (Anna Cunningham/CBC)

In Agadez, a transit town on the fringes of the Sahara that has become a staging post for the legions desperate to leave Africa, he paid traffickers to be taken on the treacherous crossing to Libya.

"It was tough. The sun was too much," he recalled. "We spent five days inside the desert without eating, only drink water, water, water. Anytime we finish, we needed more."

Crammed into a truck with many others, and with temperatures nearing 50 C during the day, he reached Libya and believed he was closer to his dream.

But his real nightmare had only just begun. In Sebha, nearly 800 kilometres from the capital, Tripoli, the driver sold them all to a man called Ali, who would then demand money for their release.

'They used to beat us every day'

There has been mounting concern from humanitarian agencies over Libya's makeshift prisons full of undocumented migrants who then become victims of human traffickers.

The prisons are divided into "ghettos," Ijitola says.  He was in the Nigeria ghetto, where he met people from countries all across West and Central Africa.

(International Organization for Migration)

Women raped

Women, who were held separately, were forced to sell themselves to their captors to get food, Ijitola says. "Those that refused the guards were raped," he says, his voice trailing off.

Violence was commonplace: "They used to beat us every day. Day by day they flog us with a pipe" — a practice referred to as giving the prisoners "morning tea," he says. 

Ijitola's story is increasingly common, says Richard Danzinger, of the International Organization for Migration.

The UN body estimates that some 6,000-7,000 undocumented migrants are in detention facilities throughout Libya, where law and order has broken down since the fall of Moammar Gadhafi in 2011.

The IOM says the majority of illegal migrants to Europe come through the central Mediterranean route, via Libya: more than 100,000 in 2016, and already more than 85,000 so far this year.

Ijitola was picked up by Libyan authorities before he could attempt the crossing to Italy.

He was sent back to Nigeria. (Anna Cunningham/CBC)

West African governments watch as their young people are being lost to ruthless people-smugglers, who often also have links to organized crime networks involved in the smuggling of arms and drugs.

$500 ransom paid

Seun's horrific ordeal lasted four long months. During that time he watched others die and thought he'd be next.

His freedom came at a price of $500, a sum his captors wanted deposited directly into their Nigerian bank account. His wife back in Lagos sold their broken car. The man who bought it borrowed the cash after hearing Seun being beaten during a phone call. 

Seun had already paid nearly $1,500 to get to Libya — for him, a small fortune. After paying the ransom, he spent about a month working to fund the next leg of his journey — the boat crossing to Italy — when the Libyan authorities caught up with him.

He was deported to Nigeria in April.

"After the whole pain, the suffering, everything, the beating and all that, the work, everything I've done in Libya … I'm back to Nigeria with nothing," says Seun.

Ijitola says he spent five days crammed inside a truck with many others, while temperatures

outside neared 50 C. Everyone in the truck was sold for ransom when they reached Libya.

(Anna Cunningham/CBC)

He always told his daughter that he wanted to give her an education, that he hoped she'd go "further than I do."

How he will do that is unclear. He has no car, no job, no money to buy food.

He feels exploited by the people who took his money along the way, calling them "evil," and likens the process to "a slave trade … buying passengers, buying human beings."

Africans need to know the true picture, he says.

"I will never try it again in my life," he says. "If I have opportunity to go to Europe again, it's going to be in the normal process."

Seun might now advise against the journey, but Danzinger, of the UN, says most people will ignore his warning and take a chance.

"They will … until they are provided with an alternative for a dignified and sustainable life in their community of origin," he said, "or for an opportunity to migrate regularly."

It's time for western powers to ensure western companies working in third world countries are no longer raping them of their natural resources and giving little or nothing back to the host country. We need to set standards for labour, for taxes, for investment, for replacing resources removed, and for ensuring a reasonable quality of life exists for indigenous peoples. And we need to do it to excess because of the centuries of abuse and poverty we have forced upon these countries. 

If Europe wants to stop the flow of migrants coming from Africa, they need to invest in the quality of life of Africans. If the west wants to stop the flow of migrants from Asia, they need to stop selling weapons to anyone and everyone who wants them. Not much chance of that, is there!

Bono: Refugee Crisis Threatens The ‘Integration of Europe’

U2 singer spoke to US senate subcommittee 

on causes and consequences of violent extremism

Bono prepares to testify on Capitol Hill in Washington. He said the refugee crisis in Europe ‘has moved from practical to existential. Photograph: Andrew Harnik/AP

Aine McMahon

U2 frontman Bono has said the refugee crisis threatens the “integration of Europe”.

The singer spoke to the US Senate’s State and Foreign Operations Subcommittee on the causes and consequences of violent extremism on Tuesday.

He was speaking after a recent trip to refugee camps in Kenya, Jordan and Turkey .

The two fictions

“The two fictions the expedition revealed are, number one, that this refugee problem is temporary. The typical crisis that creates refugees lasts 25 years. On our trip, Senator Graham and I heard the term “permanent temporary solution” thrown around, but without the irony that the phrase requires,” he said.

“The second fiction is that it is simply a Middle Eastern problem. Refugees are flowing from all over the world—especially Africa. Of the top ten countries that are hosting refugees today, five of them are African,” he said.

Yes, but many of these are internally displaced people, i.e. Nigeria. Not that that makes a difference, they are still refugees.

“Aid in 2016 is not charity; it is national security and when it is structured properly with a hard focus on fighting corruption and prudent governance to qualify for that aid it could be the beat bulwark we have against violent extremism that is gaining traction,” he said.

From Practical to Existential

Bono said the refugee crisis in Europe “ has moved from practical to existential.”

“In 1989 the wall that divided Europe came down, a remarkable moment to live through. Who could imagine in 2016 another set of walls are being built up, this time made of mesh and razor wire but walls nonetheless,” he said.

“Members of the Subcommittee, let me soberly suggest to you that the integration of Europe, the very idea of European unity is at risk here.”

“Europe is America’s most important ally since the Second World War… Are we not your most important ally in the fight against violent extremism? This stuff matters,” he said.

“Put simply, as we Europeans have learned, if the Middle East catches fire, the flames jump any border controls. And if Africa fails, Europe cannot succeed,” he said.

He said by 2050, the African population will have doubled to 2.5 billion, twice that of China and that 40 percent of the world’s youth will be African.

“ Of the ONE Campaign’s seven million members, three million of them are in Africa; we have a sense of their potential as an engine of growth, one that roars, but we also fear that if the young people of Africa are misled and marginalised, their anger could be channelled not to hope, but to hate,” he said.

ONE Campaign is a charity co-founded by Bono to address extreme poverty, and disease in poor countries.

Critical of response

Bono was also critical of the international communities response to the refugee crisis.

“The international community although it means well, is having a lot of meeting about the crisis and I believe it is issuing a record amount of press releases but what it is not doing is cutting cheques,” he said.

He said as of last month, the UN’s humanitarian response plan for 2016 had only received nine per cent of the funding they require.

“Grants are handed out annually on a hand to mouth basis with no predictability which makes it impossible to plan which is madness. It is absolute madness,” he said.

Bono also called for funding to be prioritised for the support of countries along the Sahel and the Levant who are not yet in crisis.

“I know this sounds counterintuitive, but the people I met—especially the military—told us it is critical that these countries not only survive but that they thrive. Imagine if the chaos that ripped through Syria were to engulf Egypt or, God forbid, Nigeria. These are giant countries,” he said.

Egypt has a population of about 82 million, and Nigeria about 175 million. That's over a quarter of a billion people. Imagine if half of them decided to relocate to Europe.