ALMOST half of identified human trafficking cases began with a family member’s or love one’s involvement, says the International Organization for Migration (IOM) – a United Nations migration agency. Nigerian investigative journalist TOBORE OVUORIE, motivated by years of research into irregular migration such as trafficking of women, children and youths in her country; Nigeria, as well as the initial loss of a friend and subsequently many others, decides to dig deeper in the multi-billion-dollar criminal enterprise often involving family members or close associates of affected persons. Traveling around Nigeria, in this three-part series, she documents rape experiences, beatings, bruises, abductions, embassy officials, police and other security agencies’ aiding and abetting the criminal enterprise, murder and deaths.

Here are her findings.

THE GENESIS

2015

The youngsters – over 25 of them – had left Agadez chatty after spending four days there and were so happy that the journey to seeking greener pastures had begun. They were super excited that the first check point was around the corner; an indication of completely leaving their frustrations behind in Nigeria and getting closer to making big bucks in Europe.

Boom!

Then, they heard a very loud noise. Their hearts started pumping so fast. Loudly at that, too and not in unison. Their eyes popped out of the sockets housing them; hunting for the source of the noise.

It was a corpse. Few minutes old. A young man.

Few minutes before the sad occurrence, he was like them. Hanging onto a stick at the back of a Hilux truck. On his way to Libya, but to make a stopover at Qatroun, too. And, lo and behold, he fell from the truck. And, died immediately. The driver of the Hilux from which he fell, continued as if legions of demons were in hot pursuit of the truck. Stopping, even in such situation, is against the unwritten rules on that route.

The youngsters arrived at the first checkpoint all baptized with fear and sorrow. They didn’t believe what they had witnessed and the callousness of the driver of that truck from which the young man’s life was cut short. They were never told people fall off trucks on the journey and did not expect to see corpses. All efforts to cheer themselves failed woefully.

All very young Nigerians, crammed into the truck like sardines in a can, the driver made the ladies to sit beside him, while males sat at the back – an open space – but held onto sticks to support themselves.

A salad of fear, anxiety, panic, sorrow and ‘what-next?’ overshadowed them. Deafening silence, too. They all became moodier for every fresh corpses, skeletons and dried bones they saw. These were countless.

When almost at Qatroun, heavily armed rebels launched attacks on them. The driver moved the truck as if he was in sport car on a racing track. He then hid the youngsters.

Though drenched in fear, not a single person changed his or her mind about continuing with the trip. They kept going and spent four days in the desert amidst vast land filled with sand.

Hope Yakub: Of greener pastures and risky journeys

My eyes locked with Hopes’ and sitting opposite her in the dead of the night; sometime in the third week of March 2020, I painted images in my mind; of the horrors she was narrating to me.

Hope was one of the over 25 young Nigerians sitting in the truck on the trip to Qatroun, but Libya was her final destination. She was not lucky to get a seat beside the driver, so had to sit at the back of the truck and joined the males, holding onto a stick like the rest to support herself from falling off the truck.

She never bargained for the horrors she witnessed alongside the youngsters, although she knew before departing Nigeria that Libya was the destination. And, by road too.

Her reason for travelling by road to Libya?

“Every youth wants to seek greener pasture; so, that is what prompted me to go to Libya to help myself and my family,” she told me, believing she was not trafficked.

It was 2015. Her desire for greener pasture overseas was an open secret. Ozzy; a friend, came to the rescue by introducing Hope to her sister who lived in Libya. The lines seemed to be falling in pleasant places for Hope. Ozzy’s sister offered her an all-expenses-paid trip to Libya!

She left Nigeria almost immediately.

She spent four days in Agadez and from there, the Hilux truck came to convey her and the other young Nigerians to Qatroun, in Libya.

READ MORE HERE: https://www.icirnigeria.org/deadly-migration-how-families-friends-force-nigerian-women-youths-on-the-journey-of-no-return-part-1/