How Nigerians, Ghanaians Became Slave Dealers In Libya
According to a Cameroonian returnee, the new slave trade-human trafficking
in Libya is being carried out by many nationalities, including Nigerians and
Ghanaians.
Foka Fotsi, who was trafficked twice, told Reuters that those in charge of
one of the places where he was held included Ghanaians and Nigerians. Fotsi
story corroborated another testimony by a Nigerian in the southern state of
Edo, who identified one Charles, a Nigerian as the trafficking kingpin.
Unable to find work to support his family, Fotsi decided to leave Cameroon
last year, but fell into the hands of a Libyan kidnap ring before reaching
Europe.
“There was torture like I’ve never seen. They hit you with wooden bats,
with iron bars,” he said, removing the hood of his sweatshirt and showing the
still raw red wounds on his skull.
“They hang you from the ceiling by (your) arms and legs and then throw you
down to the floor. They swing you and throw you against the wall, over and over
again, ten times.
“They are not human beings. They are the devil personified.”
Christelle Timdi, another Cameroonian recounted her horrendous experience
in the north African country.
When uniformed men boarded the overloaded rubber dingy carrying her 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 U.N.-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.
Timdi: witnesses serial raping of women in the slave camps
Libya is the main jumping off point for migrants trying to reach Europe by boat.
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.
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
organised 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.
The traffickers work with a network of taxi drivers who are supposed to
transfer released migrants to migrant camps – but who often re-traffick them,
Timdi said.
“If they send you a good taxi, you’ll arrive at your destination, but if
it’s a bad taxi the driver will sell you on to someone else,” she said.
“There are people who have been resold twice, three times. And when you
call your family to tell them that you’ve been resold once again, no one will
believe you, they won’t send more money to free you.”
Timdi was released by her captors in October and gave birth to a baby
girl, Brittanie, in a Libyan hospital just days later.
Timdi and Fotsi were among 250 Cameroonians who were flown home this week
by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) as part of a voluntary
return scheme for migrants stranded in Libya.
How Nigerians, Ghanaians Became Slave Dealers In Libya
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Sunday, December 03, 2017
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