Europe By Desert: Journey of Africans/Nigerians Migrants To Europe! - Travel - Nairaland
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| Europe By Desert: Journey of Africans/Nigerians Migrants To Europe! by Emperoh(m): 4:44pm On Feb 10, 2010 |
I saw this on The Sun website and thought it wise to share Beware though, some of the analogies are gory. The story is also long but very captivating and engaing I didn't know Sun Newspapers could do such a nice job. . . . .pls fulfill your intellectual craving!! Nice write up. . . . . . . . . . . http://sunnewsonline.com/webpages/news/national/2010/jan/05/national-05-01-2010-31.htm For 37 days, Investigative Reporter, EMMANUEL MAYAH, travelled a total of 4,318 kilometres across seven countries and the Sahara desert in the company of illegal African migrants on their way to Europe. From Nigeria to Benin Republic, Togo, Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger and finally Libya, he survived to tell the story of human traffickers, sex slavery in transit camps, starvation, desert bandits, arduous toil in a salt mine, cruel thirst and deaths in the hot desert. Tuesday, January 5, 2010 It is a long-distance suicide, yet most travelers realize it only when it is too late. Just as they say in eastern Nigeria, the road to hell is hardly narrow. It was difficult to say how many times a day this proverb rang in the head of the old woman as she emerged with uncertain steps out of her house. For a minute she hesitated; not just to measure the visitor but to squint at the midday sun as though imploring it not to be too harsh on her. Looking grief-stricken, though with a gait that betrayed genteel elegance, she muttered a few apologies to no one in particular and said something about malaria. But everyone knew the problem was much more. Indeed, life had never been the same since news reached Madam Emeagwu that her daughter was on death row in Libya. Since July 2009, Nigerians were still reeling from the aftershock of the news that twenty Nigerians, including one Juliet Okoro, were awaiting the hangman in Libyan prisons. Three women, including Glory Paul-Amanze and Juliet Okoro were among the twenty Nigerians sentenced to death in the North Africa country for offences ranging from murder, drug, armed robbery and immigration offences. Every year, thousands of sub-Saharan migrants, mostly Nigerians, set out on an often perilous journey across the desert to Libya from where they hope to slip into Europe for greener pasture. |
| Re: Europe By Desert: Journey of Africans/Nigerians Migrants To Europe! by tkb417(m): 4:55pm On Feb 10, 2010 |
are they going to paradise? |
| Re: Europe By Desert: Journey of Africans/Nigerians Migrants To Europe! by Emperoh(m): 4:56pm On Feb 10, 2010 |
But if Nigerians were not unfamiliar with reports of migrants drowning in makeshift boats in the Mediterranean or of ugly footages of human cargoes deposited at airports in yet another mass deportation, tales of execution in transit countries were a totally new dimension to the horrifying migrant story. Juliet Okoro was reported to have been convicted of murder. “Tell me, who did my daughter kill? What is the name of the man?” Madam Emeagwu asked, again to no one in particular. She took a seat under a guava tree outside her house. Someone had gone in to announce the presence of the visitor. At first the woman had relayed her disposition not to see any guest. Told that the visitor had come all the way from Lagos to the village, Isieke in Anambra State, she had no doubt what had brought him. Almost immediately, she wanted to know if the visitor was a government official and if there was anything he could do to help her daughter. It was heartbreaking having no words to comfort her. For years she had believed her daughter was in Europe, possibly in America. She had never heard of a country called Libya. Her teenage nephew, who by now had abandoned the cassava chips he was preparing for lunch, had explained she had been in bed sick ever since the family received the bad news. The last time anyone heard from Juliet was in 2000. Choosing his words carefully, this reporter announced that he was a journalist travelling to the country where Juliet was being held in prison. The journalist also told Madam Emegwu that the Libyan government had suspended the executions of more Nigerians on death row pending the final determination of a case against Libya by a Non-Governmental Organisation, Social Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), before the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights in Banjul, The Gambia. The woman appeared to digest this piece of information. Her eyes blurred, yet tears failed her. “They said there was no murder…” Her voice trailed off. The encounter was coming to an emotional end, unexpectedly infecting the reporter’s companion and interpreter. By this time, two other women had joined the gathering. They come almost every evening to join Madam Emegwu in prayers. A Nigerian deportee from Libya, Angus Emenike, who spent eleven months in Jawazat detention centre in Tripoli in 2007, had told this reporter about Juliet Okoro and where he could find her family. Finally pulling herself together, the old woman pleaded to write a letter to a daughter she had not seen in ten years and whose Ibo name was Obianuju. The interpreter did the writing, a family photograph was attached and the envelope handed over to the reporter. |
| Re: Europe By Desert: Journey of Africans/Nigerians Migrants To Europe! by Emperoh(m): 4:58pm On Feb 10, 2010 |
But if Nigerians were not unfamiliar with reports of migrants drowning in makeshift boats in the Mediterranean or of ugly footages of human cargoes deposited at airports in yet another mass deportation, tales of execution in transit countries were a totally new dimension to the horrifying migrant story. Juliet Okoro was reported to have been convicted of murder. “Tell me, who did my daughter kill? What is the name of the man?” Madam Emeagwu asked, again to no one in particular. She took a seat under a guava tree outside her house. Someone had gone in to announce the presence of the visitor. At first the woman had relayed her disposition not to see any guest. Told that the visitor had come all the way from Lagos to the village, Isieke in Anambra State, she had no doubt what had brought him. Almost immediately, she wanted to know if the visitor was a government official and if there was anything he could do to help her daughter. |
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