This is not what any normal individual can wish for his enemies.

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, intimacy slavery in transit camps, starvation, desert bandits, arduous toil in a salt mine, cruel thirst and deaths in the hot desert.

http://www.sunnewsonline.com/webpages/news/national/2010/jan/05/national-05-01-2010-31.htm

I cannot understand the desperation but I blame our leaders.

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.

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.

This story is as heart rending as it is a nightmare only that nightmare ends in the dream land while the memory of this lasts in the mind of survivors

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.

It is pathetic and degrading

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

The episode is about to begin

Computer fraud academy
On November 16, about 10.30 A.M, an Opel salon car eased out of the Mile-2 Motor park on its way to the Seme border. From this dusty motor park infested with touts and money doublers, thousands of Nigerians had commenced their long and uncertain journey to Europe with a lucky few returning home to show off their success. Among the passengers were this reporter and two other male travelers on the first stretch of their journey to Libya. Ugoh I had already met; the other I would find out was 24-year-old Irabor Monday.

Five months ago, Ugoh and I had been introduced to each other at a meeting with a human trafficker who paraded himself as a travel agent. For some reasons everyone called him Rajah, his name it was gathered was Lawrence Eyohomi. The first meeting between reporter and trafficker was inside the Mr. Biggs fast-food outlet on Ago Palace Way, in Okota, Lagos. Subsequent meetings were at Matenby Hotel close to Akpata Memorial Secondary School; however the session with Ugoh was held inside the premises of St. Mary’s Catholic Church, in Isolo, Lagos. Inside the fast food, Rajah had assured this prospective migrant that he could procure a visa to any part of Europe, America, Asia, Canada and South Africa. Wasting little time in marketing the reputation of his amorphous agency, the man in his early forties insisted that as a rule he would not accept any money until every travel papers had been delivered. He would provide the running cost.

For the client to assure him of prompt and full payment, he said the way out was to open a joint account, using the agreed visa fee at a bank of the reporter’s choice, with the two parties as signatories. Once the embassy had issued the visa, the transaction is ended in the banking hall with the two signatories pulling the money out of the account. Should the procurement suffer a hitch, the transaction would still end in the banking hall with the client going home with his money. Most often however, such transactions were known to have ended in hide and seek. It was either a wrong and cheap visa was procured to such places as Ukraine and Syria or that the money disappeared with the second consenting signature forged. For further effect, Rajah threw in that for difficult visas, to the US and UK, he could equip a determined traveler with Botswana passport or resort to what is known in the industry parlance as transplant

The dance of death is about to begin

The reporter pleaded unemployment and inability to pay N450,000 visa fee, to say nothing yet of air ticket. It met with a frown. For the next ten minutes or so, Rajah poked here and there, but having finally exhausted all hopes of getting a fat fee out of this reporter, he had proceeded to sell another travel package. It was the cheapest his agency could contrive; it was called the desert option. Not for once did he mention the risk factor.
Having settled on this plan, the trafficker subjected the reporter to what was a routine interrogation: “Have you ever travelled out of the country? Were you ever deported? Do you have any brother in Europe? Any friends? Can you use your hands? What work can you do? Can you work as a barber? Electrician? Do you know anything about welding? Carpentry? But you need such skills to survive and make it fast in Libya so you can quickly cross into Europe. What is your level of education?”

For the second time, the reporter declared he was an unemployed graduate. The trafficker paused a few seconds, and then spoke in utter reproach. “With your education, I expect your level of education to be high. How do you hope to make it big in Europe when you are not a woman? Brother, you have to use your brains…”
The trafficker revealed with pride that some of the migrants he had helped in the past were now “big boys” in Spain, Germany, Holland and other places. Then he revealed something else: he runs a class where registered prospective migrants are coached on credit card fraud, internet fraud, ATM fraud, Red Mecury Scam, Identity Theft, Share Certificate fraud and the notorious Advance Fee Fraud, better known as 419.

At first it appeared like a petty crook struggling to make an impression but after this reporter had met in Rajah’s hotel room, a Germany returnee who had successfully switched from stealing and exporting exotic cars to Nigeria to stealing and exporting generators, it did not take further goading to sign up for the computer class, paying N70,000 for three months. The training was mostly at night, at an innocuous-looking cybercafé inside an uncompleted three-storey building directly opposite the Isolo Public Library along Holy Saviour College Road. The first two floors are coated in green while the top remains unpainted and without windows. Ugoh was also a student of the computer fraud academy. Looking at him in faded jean trouser and a cotton shirt, it was difficult to imagine Europe was his destination.

Na wa oo
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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.

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

It is very sad indeed my God help us all

I dnt fink one shud b frustrated to dat extent
dat d next fing is europe by road.

Its very bad and let us leave
our govt out of this. There r oda ways
u cud get dia.

SHALOM

Man, this is gory!!!

Pity that people have to suffer these indignities, in search of a better life.
I honestly think it is better that people take their chances back home.

I cnt even advice my enemy
to try it at all

SHALOM

I believe this journey my migrants is slowly dying down

I don't think so. If you see the desperation in many hearts, you would know what I mean.
I wish more people would read this message. Spam bot refused to allow me post all of em here.

i want to read the story to the end

^ click the link bro