الصحراء الخانقة ,,,قصص مأساة المهاجرين عبر الصحراء الى اوربا

The suffocating desert

To get to Libya, people must first cross the Sahara. Men, women and children are piled onto the back of pick-up trucks and told to hold on with the risk of falling off and being left in the desert alone.

Jidda describes the journey. “It’s a very organised system, before you are coming down from the bus, another one is already there waiting for you, because it is illegal [to cross without the right documentation] , they don’t want the police or immigration officers to know about it. It’s hurry, hurry, hurry. We’re in these open trucks with sticks between our legs. You had to hold that stick very firm. Some fell and they died and the driver just kept moving. There’s no water. The sun is crushing. The breeze that comes is as hot as fire.

“You hear people crying, wailing. Days, nights, they kept driving. They mistreat you, you don’t have a voice. You see people fainting. They started crying because they are thirsty. I remember vividly I revived three people with water.”

In the desert, there are checkpoints where guards and militia rob and demand money from everyone. Victor, a Nigerian man who also took the journey and is now in Italy, explains: “There were lots of checkpoints, they collected all the money we had, they beat us severely.  When we had no money, in some cases, they would take some of the ladies among us, rape them. We saw a lot of atrocities.”

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