MEDITERRANEAN SEA The moment arrived that the Nigerian man had been waiting for a long time. His boss tugged at his sleeve.
– You are leaving tonight, the boss said.
In the harbor of the coastal city of Zuwara, Libya, people smugglers prepared a white rubber boat. They planted 59 men and four women in it tightly side by side. On top, they piled a pile of car tires, which served as lifebuoys.
In an interview with , a 34-year-old Nigerian man recounts the events he was in the middle of just a short while ago.
He says he got a seat on the edge of the boat. He had to sit aboard with his thighs spread apart so that one leg sometimes touched the surface of the sea. The place was risky: if the boat were to empty of air, he would be among the first on the water.
But there were no alternatives, the man says. He had no money to pay for the trip. Instead, he had worked for two years for his boss, a Libyan drug dealer he calls by name Baron. The baron had promised to pay his family places on the boats going to Italy.
The man’s wife and four-year-old daughter had already made it to Italy by boat last year, and now it was finally the man’s turn to get across the sea.
We call the man by his name in this story Eric. He does not reveal his real name because he fears for his safety. Based on his story, there is reason to suspect that he has become a victim of human trafficking.
has not been able to verify anything he said.
Human trafficking is a serious crime, the victim of which has to submit to a situation where he is exploited and threatened, and he cannot get out of the situation. For Eric, these characteristics seem to have been fulfilled in Libya.
At two o’clock in the morning, the human smugglers pushed the rubber boat into the dark Mediterranean. After a few hours, Eric noticed that the air has started to drain from the rubber boat.
EU and Italy pay for blocking the route
A day later, the boat was found by European rescuers. Nigerian Eric and 62 others got to safety on the lower deck of the Doctors Without Borders rescue ship Geo Barents two weeks ago.
was there to witness how the rubber boat’s passengers were rescued from the central Mediterranean. When the rescuers arrived, the rubber boat plowed deep water: it was already about to sink. In addition to Eric, there were also other Nigerians and at least Sudanese, Gambian, Ghanaian and Bangladeshi among those rescued.
Read here our first report about rescue operations in the Mediterranean
The passengers later say that they hid from the lifeguards in their deflating dinghy because they weren’t sure who they were. When they finally realized that it was the Europeans, many stood up and started clapping.
Eric and the other passengers had left Libya, which has been in turmoil for years under the European Union and Italy supported by hundreds of millions in euros. None of the rubber boat passengers wanted to go back there.
In 2017, Italy concluded an agreement with Libya aimed at blocking the central Mediterranean migration route. Italy has trained and supported the Libyan Coast Guardwhich in turn transports migrants and refugees going to the Mediterranean back to Libya.
Libyan Coast Guard exploit also information on the location of migrant boats provided by the planes of the European border authority Frontex.
Human rights organizations and the UN have called the treatment of migrants in Libya a crime against humanity. Organizations have demanded the EU to stop of supporting Libya.
The experiences of survivors on the Geo Barents rescue ship tell of a hellish place. Many men rescued from the boat tell about their experiences of constant violence and slave labor in Libya.
Four West African women were also saved from the rubber boat. Some of them have experienced sexual violence and are psychologically in such bad shape that they need a friend to talk to, in the opinion of Geo Barents’ treatment staff, rather than a therapist rather than a journalist.
That’s why you can’t get an interview from them.
The exploitation of migrants is systematic
EU Commissioner for Refugees Ylva Johansson admitted in the summer that organized crime had infiltrated the Libyan coast guard.
Exploitation of migrants is an organized activity in Libya and extends to boat trips, confirms a senior researcher at the Italian Foreign Policy Institute Matteo Villa.
– Those who want to cross the sea pay the smugglers to get on the boat, and the coast guard picks them up from the sea back to Libya. They are tortured and extorted money from them, and then they have to pay for the boat trip again, says Villa.
Eric, interviewed by , had also boarded the boat to Europe for the second time.
The first time, the Libyan coast guards caught the passengers at sea and took them back to land. After that, Eric was locked up in a detention center, where he says he was tortured with monthly torture. A bribe would have gotten away earlier, but there was no money.
Finally, Eric’s employer Baron came to the rescue. This got him out of the detention center. According to Eric, it is a mafioso – a man who runs the trade of hard drugs in Libya. The baron had forced Eric to join the drug deal.
After the first boat trip attempt, Eric always owed Paroni a greater debt of gratitude. The thought that I would soon get out of Libya, to Italy to my daughter and wife carried me forward.
– However, before I left in October, Baron came to say that I owed him. That when I get to Europe, he will find me and force me to continue selling drugs in Italy.
When Eric tried to refuse, he was beaten.
Suspected victim of human trafficking
When Eric tells his story on the deck of the Geo Barents, he clearly has trouble remembering years. It’s as if entire months have been erased from memory.
For example, Eric doesn’t remember exactly when he left his home country of Nigeria, but it was either in 2016 or 2017. Before that, he says he worked in the Nigerian army.
The security of the country was threatened by the terrorist organization Boko Haram. Eric’s mother, father and daughter died in the attack, Eric says.
Eric decided to run away and ended up in Libya.
– If you had asked before Libya what had ever happened in my life, I would have remembered. Now that I think about the last few years, my nose starts to bleed. I would need psychology.
Eric gets up from the deck of the ship to kick a football with the other dinghy survivors. Then he even smiles a little.
Most of the time on the ship, however, he sits and thinks. She absolutely does not want to work for the Baron anymore, but is afraid that he will find her in Italy.
Eric also knows that the EU is supporting both Libya and Tunisia in order to keep out the migrants trying to reach Europe. He has read on X (formerly Twitter) that the Prime Minister of Italy Giorgia Meloni has provided the Libyan coastguard with fast boats to pick up migrants at sea.
– It means that we are left at the mercy of countries like Libya and Tunisia. There is no order in Libya and no one values human life.
In Eric’s opinion, the EU should have some plan for those people who are stuck in violent countries outside of Europe as a result of the arrangement.
When Geo Barents arrives in the port of Genoa, Eric sits on the lower deck of the ship with a canvas bag pulled over his head. He is afraid that the henchmen of the Libyan drug lord Baron will recognize him.
He will be taken to a reception center for asylum seekers specializing in human trafficking cases. Five days later, he responds to the reporter’s message.
– I’m fine.