Desperation, poverty, fear: The situation of most refugees in Libya, is hopeless. The crackdown by Italy and Libya makes the Crossing to Europe is almost impossible. A Reportage.
It is easy to recognize them. Day-to-day you stand along the road, which runs in the city of zuara in the far North-West of Libya, from the place of the Martyr to the mosque. The latter is since the civil war, in ruins. The migrants wait on a Job as a day laborer in construction or as a cleaner, form a circle, as I speak to you. And there is a barrage of questions: “is it True that Italy has closed its ports for migrants? The Libyan coast guard to be as effective as it is said? There are still rescue boats?”
Further on to Europe or back home?
The 21-year-old Emile tells of his escape. In 2015, he left his home in Guinea. On the Senegal, the Gambia, Mali, Algeria, he came to Morocco. From there, he started a first attempt to reach Europe. “I’ve tried it in Tangier by ferry and then by boat to Ceuta. After the third attempt, the Moroccan police put me in with many others to a refugee camp in Casablanca,” he says.
As he came free, he crossed the Algerian desert to get to Libya. Here he was arrested once kidnapped, twice. Emile says he was familiar with the harsh policy of the Italian Minister of the interior Matteo Salvini. He knows that there guards are “far more Libyan coast as NGOs”. Still, He wants to soon to risk the sea.
But not everyone sees it that way. Sammy has been trying for several months, desperate to raise money to create it on a boat, the direction of the North, in the direction of Europe is driving. The 23-Year-old has now resigned. “I want to me just at the UNHCR [refugee Agency of the United Nations, note. d. Red.] register, so that I can return to Nigeria sent. But I haven’t told my parents yet,” says Sammy.
The latest development he was following on the Internet. “Those of us who speak English, to get information. But the only French or Arabic – like over there – is hardly what’s going on,” said Sammy, pointing to a group of Sudanese in the vicinity.
Men, Women, Children, Babies
The migrants who get caught by the police, come to the local detention centre. Which was set up last year in the former prison of Zuwara. Anwar Abudi, the warehouse Manager. According to him, currently there are 300 people, most of them from Sub-Saharan Africa. Among them, 25 women and seven children, including a newborn. A day earlier, Abudi has brought the young Nigerian woman to the hospital so she can give birth.
“Any international assistance, whether monetary, Material or vehicles, first to Tripoli. Due to corruption nothing more is here then,” he says, as he wings through the building, separately for men and women, running. Some of the inmates complain about the poor conditions in the camp, but no reports of ill-treatment by the overseers.
Wait in the reception camp: three Yemenis and Syrians (2.v.r.) in zuwārah
Abudi said that this year three-quarters of the inmates were sent back to their home. “Delays are normal”, he says. Currently, three men from Yemen, and Syrians among the inhabitants of the camp. During the return trip for the Syrians was already in the works, know the Yemenis nothing about their fate, as they report. “Back in Yemen? I’ve heard for more than a year nothing more of my family. I wonder if there’s still someone alive,” says the 19-year-old Abed.
Gaddafi’s supporters hold zuwārah in respiratory
Zuwārah is located in the North-West of Libya and is the only Berber enclave on the coast. The place is surrounded by Arab villages, where supporters of the 2011 killed Muammar al-Gaddafi is still in charge. But this is only one of many issues that is of concern to the city.
Sadiq Jiash directs the emergency Committee of Zuwara and reported by a growing list of problems: environmental damage caused by abandoned petrochemical plants in the West, or dozens of displaced Tuareg families, who come from the South, are just two examples. Then there are in zuwārah still problems due to the oil smuggling across the Tunisian border, and how could it be otherwise – human trafficking.
“The masked men”
Zuwārah was once the Main departure point for migrants who wanted to go to Europe – to the authorities in 2015, called a Brigade, which should be the crisis. This group is called “The masked men”. Since 2015 also dozens of smugglers arrived in prison, and trafficking in human beings was significantly decreased. In the past year, the unit was moved but, in order to monitor the border with Tunisia – the beach was left unattended. The human traffickers could hardly believe their luck.
Zuwārah is the only enclave of the Berbers on the coast
Two men smuggle claims to migrants across the Mediterranean to Europe, reports the German wave of its shops. One of them have brought more than 7000 people in the last 15 years to Europe, except in the nine months in which he sat in zuwārah in prison after the “masked men” had him arrested. He says that he was released, after he had paid the 150,000 Dinar (94.000€).
People – instead of oil smuggling
The second facilitator introduces himself as “very ordinary types of zuwārah”. He is, to have until last year, Oil with Maltese vessels smuggled. As, however, in October 2017, the Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana was murdered, the researched a corruption scandal in which high-ranking politicians in Malta have been involved, changed the situation. After the murder of the Maritime transport had been controlled to Malta much stricter. The Libyans had been “forced”, more and more people switch, after the Oil “was not a viable Option”.
“My prices vary between 2000 and 8000 dinars, depending on skin color: The darker, the lower. Somalis pay so much less, as a Moroccan,” says the facilitator. Whether he felt for the death of migrants in the Mediterranean sea? So something happened to him, he says. “My boats are never crowded and I stay during the whole trip via satellite phone in contact with my customers.”