Gambian returnee Buba Fabareh was one of 169 migrants to be
repatriated from Libya on April 4th this year. He was caught by police in Tripoli and returned to the
International Organization for Migration (IOM) who helped him go back home.
But before Tripoli he was stuck like thousands of other West
Africans in Libya’s Sabha city where migrants hoping for a better future in
Europe are sold, tortured and turned into slaves in a lawless and place held by
Libyan militia they call ‘guntown’.
It begins on the journey itself. After paying smuggling agents to
organise their trip to Tripoli in Libya to take a boat to Europe, the migrants
travel through several countries to Agadez, for a long time the migrant launch
pad in Niger.
Some pay the agents in Agadez others in their home country but
either way, the journey is paid to agents before they cross into Libya.
Along the way, they are stopped at checkpoints where officials and
some less official men take more cash from them in Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger
and Libya.
At the final checkpoint, the entrance to Sabha, all the money they
have left is usually stripped away.
Agents pay the drivers once they arrive. If they don’t get paid,
the migrants said, the drivers will sometimes sell the migrants to local
gangsters called ‘asma boys’ who jail them and demand repayment with interest.
Culled from: Channels Television
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