More Bitter Tales By Returnees From Libya

Series of interviews were conducted with the returnees that arrived Nigeria on Thirsty night at the Murtala Muhammed airport.

Many of the returnees who shared their experiences like Chibuzor, vowed never to attempt the dangerous journey again. But experts say that so far as there are few success stories amidst the deaths, some of the returnees may try again when the shock of their time in Libya wear off.

Kelvin Sunday, 21, an Edo State indigene, who returned with Chibuzor, said that he was in Libya for seven months.

He spent N965,000 to get to Libya after raising the money with the help of friends and his my sister.

Sunday explained that a friend of his, who made it to Europe, convinced him to embark on the journey.

According to him, 41 of them set out in Kano for the journey through the desert but only 10 made it to Libya.

He said their fate was sealed when their vehicle developed an engine fault in the desert.

Sunday said, “We were in the desert for three days without food or water. We were drinking our urine to survive. It got to a point that when there was no more urine to drink, we started to drink fuel.

“When we got to Libya, I was working in my burger’s house. I spent two weeks there before I went to the seaside (in Tripoli) where we would cross. From Sabha to the seaside in Tripoli, I spent two weeks. On the way, some traffickers kidnapped us. They beat and loaded us into their Hilux van, but few of us jumped down and I broke my leg. I managed to escape as they were shooting.

“We spent two days in the desert again after that escape. We later saw a motorist whom we begged to help us get to the seaside.

“We were camped at the seaside for three months without any opportunity to cross through the seas. People trying to cross the sea told me to avoid Nigerians helping Libyans to sell people. But later our camp was raided by soldiers, who took us to prison.”

He had spent four months in the cell before luck smiled on him and IOM officials effected his repatriation along with many others.

I return home as a one-eyed man – Okotie, 35

Less than a year after Harrison Okotie, 35, got to Libya, he was kidnapped by some violent traffickers, who hit him in the eye with the butt of a gun.

He lost his left eye to that attack.

“Now, I don’t know if my wife and two children would ever recognise me when I get back home. I left Nigeria a whole man but I am returning with one eye,” Okotie said.

He explained that before leaving Nigeria in 2014, he worked as a painter after graduating from the Delta State University.

After paying N600,000 for the journey through the desert, he got to Libya where he was grabbed off the street by some traffickers who sold him for 2,000 dinars (about N529,000).

“When you got to the person you were sold to, he sold you again for double the previous amount.

“Many Nigerians have gone mad and cannot even say where they are in Libya right now. The day officials came to register us for repatriation, we were in a queue when one of the Libyan officials shot a Nigerian dead right there. They said he was trying to run, whereas he was desperate to return home.”

Another returnee, Esosa Osas, 25, who was a hairdresser before he left Nigeria, spent six months in Libya. She told tales of many women being raped.

“It is either rape or death. Nobody could refuse being raped,” she said.

A fellow Edo State indigene, Odion Saliu, 26, said that the Nigerian trafficker who facilitated her trip lied to her.

She said, “She told me that once in Kano, we were going to take a plane to Libya. I was shocked when we were loaded into a vehicle.

“We spent nine days crossing the desert to Libya. I was kidnapped and sold at least three times before God brought me back to my fatherland. I am really thankful to God that I am alive.”

The Nigerian traffickers fueling the trafficking industry in Libya seems to have attracted the attention of the government.

The Senior Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on Foreign and Diaspora Affairs, Mrs. Abike Dabiri-Erewa, said there was a need for Nigerians to report human traffickers in the society.

She said the Federal government’s whistleblower policy against human trafficking would ensure a handsome reward for credible information about human traffickers .

“Traffickers must be prosecuted, must be arrested and they must be known. There is a whistle-blower policy by NAPTIP; report traffickers, they are amongst you’

An official of the Edo State task force on illegal migration, Mr. Okoduwa Solomon, told Saturday PUNCH that since November 7, the state had taken custody of at least 897 Libyan returnees who are indigenes of the state.

He explained that the exercise to help them resettle in Nigeria would continue so far as there were still Nigerians trapped in Libya.

“We are using the returnees to raise awareness about the dangers of illegal migration in Edo State,” he said.