25
Nigerians Die In The Sahara Desert: Libyan Returnee
More tales from Libya as a Nigerian returnee from
Libya has revealed that 25 compatriots, ferried from Nigeria to Libya by a
trafficker identified as Charles, perished in the Sahara Desert, in the course
of the journey.
The returnee, who identified himself as Alex Otoide,
from Edo state, said seven members of the group also died inside a Libyan jail.
“We were 55 that travelled from here to Libya, 25 people died in the desert. More
than seven people died from hunger and thirst inside the prison”, Otoide said.
Libyan returnee Otoide spoke with journalists in a
government camp in Benin City. He said the human trafficking agent, Charles
collected the N500, 000 from him with a promise of a better life in Europe.
He, however, regretted that instead of Europe, he
ended up in a Libyan jail. He said but for providence, things could have been
worse for him as he witnessed the sale of 20 Nigeria girls in the prison where
they were all kept. “They sold about 20 girls in the night. I saw it. It was
God that saved me.” “I left Nigeria with N500,000. I spent six months in Libya
jail after the man that took my money ran away.
Many of the
returnees look skinny and exhausted while some of the women among them came
back to the country with babies, whose fathers are not known. Charles, the
returnees said, is running a transit camp in Libya for those who wanted to
travel illegally across the Mediterranean to Europe.
He regularly
made a trip back to Nigeria where he persuaded desperate young men and women
that he can help them to get to Europe from Libya for a fee of about N500, 000.
But according to the deportees, after collecting the money, Charles usually
abandoned them in Libya.
The human trafficking kingpin reportedly operated
several bank accounts with different names in Nigeria through which he
collected money from victims. They alleged Charles kept Nigerians for days
without food in his camp in Libya. Many of the migrants don’t even make it to
Libya as they died of exhaustion in the Sahara desert, according to the
migrants.
Osas
Blessing, one of the returnees said Charles is among those nicknamed “burgers”
or “connection man” on the Libya route. He said: “I gave Charles N450, 000 but
when I got to Libya he increased it to N600, 000. He is very wicked. He does
not care for human life. He is a Benin man.
He will say if you die you die. He pushed us into
the sea at the wrong time. “I heard he just left Nigeria with new passengers to
Libya. He has frustrated many Nigerians.” At the 2018 budget presentation to
the House of Assembly on Wednesday, Gov. Godwin Obaseki said no fewer than
10,000 indigenes of the state were trafficked in the last one year.
He disclosed
that more than 3,000 deaths were recorded among the trafficked persons. Edo
state is generally recognised as the capital of human trafficking, with
hundreds of young girls hoodwinked into sex slavery in Europe. Parents are
known to sell their houses to offer their children to human traffickers, paying
huge sums of money into the voluntary bondage scam.
25 Nigerians Die In The Sahara Desert: Libyan Returnee
Reviewed by Unknown
on
Thursday, November 30, 2017
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