So bad: Story of a Nigerian young man who return from Libya

One would think that after he was brought back to life from the land of the dead, he would give up and find his way back to Nigeria. But that did not happen. Ephraim was prepared to continue with the mission. “After about one week, we went back to our camp where we attempted again to cross but this time; the sea wave swept us to a different country entirely. The wave was as high as a three-storey building. So, it was fishermen who rescued us and carried us back to Libya the second time. Meanwhile, many of us died during this second trial just like it happened during the first one.”

Attempt number three

Even so this could not deter Ephraim. He took a third leap of faith. “After about two weeks when the sea had calmed down, we boarded again the third time; they pushed us into the sea. We had gone to a point called mortar when our boat developed an engine problem. The engine just went off and we were at the middle of the sea. The fishermen tried to push us with their machine but it couldn’t push the boat, so, another boat came and towed us back to Libya. This time, nobody died; we all went back safely to Libya.

Last attempt

Emboldened by his survival of this third attempt, coupled with his desperation to enter Europe, he jumped into the sea the fourth time. But, this time, prison gate beckoned at him and it was only his experience in the prison that restored his senses and prompted his decision to return to his fatherland. “After several weeks, we made the fourth attempt at crossing the sea but this time, it was the Libyan militants that intercepted our boat, arrested us, and returned us to Libya where we were thrown into an underground prison. We had spent almost four hours sailing on the sea before the interception. We had left the Libyan territory and were already on the blue sea, which is clearly an Italian territory. We were already seeing dolphins before an Italian helicopter hovered above us, took our photograph, and zoomed off. We were happy that at last we had crossed over, but suddenly, another boat with double exhaust pipes emerged from behind us. And all we heard was “Gamigamiloto; gamigamizeturuma, gaba’ meaning ‘stupid people; where do you think you are going?’ And this is something that has never happened before. You can’t go to another country’s territory to make arrest but that was exactly what these Libyan militants did. They arrested us right inside the Italian territory and took us back to Libya. They hurled us into the Melila prison at the back of an oil refinery in Tripoli. I spent four months inside the prison without hearing from any of my people; nobody knew my whereabouts in those four months.”

In all the four attempts to cross the Mediterranean Sea, he paid N120,000 on each occasion.

Life in prison

Apart from beatings and other inhuman treatments meted to them, they were forced to render emergency medical services to women in labour. He said: “Right inside there, ladies were being delivered of babies. We became emergency nurses, doing what we were not trained to do. Some of the women were already pregnant before they left Nigeria while many others got pregnant right inside the camp, mainly through rape. When they catch anybody that tried to escape, they would call all of us out to witness the killing of such a person. They would shoot the person to death right before us. Sometimes, they would even order us to do the shooting. It was horrible.

“We celebrated October 1, 2017 inside the prison. We asked them to allow us come out from that underground prison so we could celebrate our country’s independence anniversary and we were granted that privilege. They brought all Nigerians out and we marched, sang the national anthem and recited the national pledge. That particular day, there was jailbreak where almost over 30 Nigerians escaped and because of that incident, some of us Nigerians that were in the prison were thoroughly beaten. During the beating process, one of my friends from Delta State, Miracle, died. For three days, the corpse was with us, swollen up, in the prison. It was such a sad day for me even though I had experienced worse things earlier on.

“But, on October 16, 2017, we broke the prison gate again and escaped into the desert. Over 400 persons escaped that day. They shot several people to death; many sustained serious injuries; many were captured and taken to correction houses but few of us escaped into the desert.”

Back to desert again

“We escaped around 6:00 am but by 4:00 pm, we were still running in the desert; about eight of us were rescued by an Arab man, who spoke Bini language to us and took us in his car to a place called Agilet, where he handed us over to a camp owned by a Nigerian of Yoruba extraction. The man’s name is Kamal; so the name of the camp is Kamal camp.”

On December 28, 2017 he came back to Nigeria. “When I landed at the airport, I was given N43,000.” Although, he had taken part in the IOM’s reintegration training workshop being organised for voluntary returnees from Libya, he is yet to be empowered financially.

Regrets

“This journey took almost N3 million from me and my family. I don’t like talking about my experiences because it makes me remember all those horrible events. It was a very big mistake for me to have embarked on the journey in the first instance. Going there caused me pains I cannot forget in my life. How I wish there is something I can use to reformat my brain so that I will completely forget everything about the journey,” he submitted.