No parole – Testimonies (2/2)

« I am 16 or 17 years old, I am not sure anymore…I left my country three years ago. While we were crossing the Sahara, the car crashed and I fractured my coccyx. I ended up in the hands of a trafficker. I was given daily beatings for three months, until my family paid the ransom. Then, when I reached the sea, I was captured and ransomed again. Finally, I was able to set sail. After more than a day at sea, we came upon an Italian ship, which rescued us. We though we would be taken to Italy, but they brought us back to Libya, where we were handed over to the Libyan coastguard.
There's no solution for us, here. How can we get out of here when even the HCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) won't pay us any attention? We're desperate, we're on the path to our own deaths, here. Who can help us? I am one of the youngest ones here, but I just sit around like the old men. I can’t play around anymore, can’t work, can’t enjoy anything, I'm just a prisoner here... »
February 2020

« I arrived in Libya with my wife and our child in October 2016, but, in the desert, we were kidnapped and separated. After paying her ransom, my wife was able to get aboard a boat. In January 2017, the boat sank, with her and our child on board. I experienced the deepest sadness a man can feel.
In August 2017, I paid for a place on a boat, but we (466 people) were actually just being sold to another trafficker. There were about 480 of us, men and women, packed in a warehouse. In January 2018, exhausted by the mistreatment we got every day, we ran away. I was part of a group of 48 people who were recaptured, and then I was sold again two times.
In May 2018, after paying the ransom and paying for another spot on a boat, we set off for the sea. On the road, about 380 of us were kidnapped. In July 2018 we paid again, and about 60 of us made it to sea. After sailing for about 16 hours, we ran out of gas. An Italian boat came upon us but didn’t stop, and then a few hours later a Libyan ship came and brought us back to shore. We were arrested and placed in a detention centre... I don't need to tell you what our life is like here, you've seen it for yourself. This is the way things have been all the way until now… »
February 2020

« …I left my country, Eritrea, in February 2017. I was captured and imprisoned in Suq Al-Khamis, which is supposed to be an official detention centre. But after a month-and-a-half, I was transferred into the hand of traffickers in Bani Walid. I was locked up there for four months in almost complete darkness. I was tortured day after day, with my six fellow detainees. Five of them were killed before my eyes (two of them were shot, the three others died after repeated electric shocks)…It's hard for me to find the words to describe what happened. Those four months seemed like four centuries! (...) In Libya, I have been imprisoned for more than three years. I have no more hope for any help from anyone. Day after day, I'm crying inside. »
February 2020

« With many others, I was captured by traffickers in the Libyan desert. They starved and tortured us, and I saw dozens of people killed before my eyes. There were no graves for these children, women and men. Our torturers just tossed them in a fire…By chance, after a month , I was able to escape with a few fellow detainees. I reached the port city of Zawiya, and attempting a sea crossing (…) I sailed for more than two days, but the Libyan coastguard stopped us and brought us back to shore. I was held in a detention centre, first in Tripoli and then in Dahr Al Djebel.
I left home in 2015. I've been in captivity for almost all of the last five years (whether in the hands of traffickers or in official detention centres). Where is the HCR? What happened to human rights? Here in the Dahr Al Djebel centre, before MSF intervened, I saw two dozen people get die from illness, but who's worrying about this? We're dying a slow death, locked up like this. If the HCR can't do anything for us, or doesn’t want to, let them say so! »
February 2020

« I left Eritrea in March 2015. I spent a little more than a year in Sudan and then I went to Libya. I entered through Al-Koufrah and then went on to Bani Walid, where traffickers stopped me. I was imprisoned for more than a year. I tried to escape once, but I was recaptured. To punish me, they locked me in a closed container, in the full sun, for a month…Finally (once my ransom was paid) I managed to reach the coast, but in October 2017, with battles between the militias raging, I was arrested and sent to a detention centre. I have been held in four detention centres, including this one. In February 2019, I was interviewed by the HCR with eight fellow detainees. A few months later, six of us were evacuated. So far, I haven’t had any news from the HCR. We're all asylum seekers here, so why isn't the HCR paying more attention to us? Why they don’t come here more often? The HCR, or at least the employees who've come here, have promised us so many things, but is are doing so little… »
February 2020

« I left Eritrea for Sudan in May 2015. I stayed there for a little more than a year before leaving again, for Libya. In Bani Walid I ended up imprisoned by a trafficker for about a year. My family, which was still in Eritrea, had no choice but to sell their house to pay my ransom.
In March 2017, I was released and I made it to the coast. I waited four months before trying to cross. After sailing a dozen hours, in the middle of the sea, a Libyan ship intercepted us. They shot in front of our boat to make us stop. In the end, since we refused to return to Libya, they shot holes in our boat, to sink it. We had no choice but to come aboard their boat. Back onshore, we were transferred  to the Tariq-al-Matar centre. Then, because the front line was getting closer, we were transferred to the Dahr Al Djebel centre.
We need help, Libya is like hell for us…I am 49 years old, I'm tired, and I am too old to say anything! »
February 2020

« I fled Eritrea in 2017. I went through Ethiopia, then Sudan, and finally Libya. I waited for four months in the coastal city of Sabratha to try to cross the sea, but unfortunately the smugglers/traffickers sent us back to Benghazi, where we were imprisoned. The HCR intervened and registered us as refugees, and then evacuated us by plane. I thought about going to Niger, but then I was locked up again in Tripoli in the Tariq-al-Siqa detention centre, before being transferred to the Tariq-al-Matar centre…Finally I ended up here, at the Dahr Al Djebel detention centre…
Who is there to hear us and, especially, give us what we need? What is the HCR doing? MSF is the only hope we have left. But in these conditions, what can MSF do for us? Is there really any hope for us? »
February 2020

« At the beginning of 2017, I reached Libya.  On the way to the coast, I was captured by a militia who locked me up. For several months I was tortured every day until my family paid a ransom. In September 2017, I reached the coastal city of Sabratha, but unfortunately the city had been ravaged by fighting between the militias.
With many other migrants, I was arrested and sent to the Gharyan detention centre. I was locked up there for seven months with almost no food and without seeing daylight. I saw so many people die, I lost so many friends…
One day, the detention centre was attacked by traffickers. They took away dozens and dozens of people. Then I was transferred to several other detention centres before finally ending up in the Dahr Al Djebe centre. There, the first nine months were terrible, we were packed together in a huge hangar for 24 hours a day (more than 500 people in a space of about 1,500 m2). Twenty-three people died, most of them from tuberculosis… »
February 2020