In Half 2, Jimmy’s quiet need and longing to flee Benin changed into a plan, a harmful land route by way of Niger into Libya.
With three associates by his aspect, he set off armed with nothing however an ECOWAS passport, borrowed funds, and the idea that the street, regardless of how lethal, may result in freedom.
Catch up right here: PART 2 OF JIMMY’S STORY
Half 3: By the Desert
The street out of Nigeria was bumpy. The street into hell was sand.
From Niger, Jimmy and the others made it to a metropolis known as Sabha. That is the place the journey stopped being troublesome and have become lethal.
To cross the Niger-Libya border, they needed to ditch the buses and climb onto bikes. Not common okadas. These had been desert bikes, operated by males often known as “Fani individuals.” They had been infamous for one factor: velocity.
“They drove like madmen,” Jimmy stated. “As a result of for those who get caught by Arab traffickers on the market… your nightmare begins.”
It wasn’t a metaphor. Getting caught meant being bought.
By then, there was no turning again. When you entered that a part of the route, the desert swallowed you complete. No rescues. No calls house. Simply the silence of sand and the ghosts of people that by no means made it.
That they had already spent near 1,000,000 naira. Within the eyes of smugglers, that made them strolling wallets who will need to have household in Europe or overseas sponsors footing the invoice. That assumption alone painted targets on their backs.
They crossed into Libya and spent the evening on the first border cease. There, underneath the frozen breath of the desert evening, the true journey started.
“There’s nothing on the market,” Jimmy recounted. “Simply sand. No bushes. No buildings. Not even birds.”
From that time, it was Tripoli or nowhere. A whole bunch of miles of desert. No map. No promise of arrival. Solely open-back vehicles loaded with human cargo.
Jimmy was considered one of them.
“They packed over 100 of us into one truck,” he recalled. “Some sat on the ground, others dangled from the perimeters. They put planks between our legs so we would not fall off.”
The vehicles sped by way of the desert at what felt like 200 miles per hour. The drivers, principally Arabs or Fani guys, by no means stopped. They could not. Stopping meant danger. Rebels may spot them, ambush them, rob everybody, and worse, take the individuals.
Libya wasn’t ruled by legal guidelines; it was ruled by whoever held the gun. And within the absence of management, the desert had devolved right into a battlefield dominated by armed gangs, pirates with Toyota Hilux vehicles and low-cost radios.
In the event that they caught you, your destiny could be splintered into three classes:
Ladies had been bought into intercourse slavery. Males had been auctioned off for arduous labour: development, farming, loading heavy items for weeks with out meals or water. Some had been by no means seen once more.
That was the truth Jimmy was barreling towards. And there was no going again.
The Harsh Journey
The desert did not kill you shortly. It wore you down, inch by inch, hour by hour, till your physique forgot find out how to struggle.
Jimmy’s journey by way of the Sahara lasted practically three weeks. Three weeks of thirst, warmth, and silence. No cities. No bushes. No shade. Simply the wind, the sand, and the bones of those that had gone earlier than and by no means made it out.
“There have been no birds,” Jimmy stated as soon as. “No sound. Simply the wind blowing the sand like a storm.”
Once they began out, they’d a couple of jerrycans of water, perhaps 20 litres shared amongst dozens. But it surely did not final.
Ravenous individuals turned on one another. They stabbed for a chunk of bread and stole for a sip of water. You could not go to sleep with out clutching your bag like a lifeline. One fallacious transfer and somebody would take every part you had.
It was insanity. Actual-life Mad Max.
When the water ran out, they drank the one factor they’d left: their very own urine.
Finally, there wasn’t even urine left to drink. You could not pee with out water in your physique. And for Jimmy, it bought worse. He had a situation the place he used to move blood in his urine, even again in Nigeria. The dehydration turned it into agony. His physique shut down, and all that got here out was blood.
“I seemed like a dying Somali refugee,” he would later say. “I used to be bones. Simply bones and desperation.”
Some did not survive. Two ladies and a person from their group died within the desert. Their our bodies had been left behind. Burials had been inconceivable in sand. Two others turned again. Nobody ever heard from them once more.
Finally, they stumbled into Sabha, one of many final cities earlier than Tripoli. However Libya wasn’t Nigeria. There have been no highways, no specific roads. Even between cities, individuals nonetheless travelled by desert.
In Sabha, the promise of Europe returned like a mirage. They had been advised somebody named Charles would take them to Tripoli. He was a Nigerian, an Edo man like Jimmy, one of many so-called “burgers” who facilitated the path to Europe. That they had his quantity. He was supposed to fulfill them at a metropolis known as Benolene.
So that they waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Days melted into weeks. Nobody got here.
They had been stranded within the desert, surrounded by nothing. Simply plastic tarps strung into makeshift tents to dam the solar. Sandstorms got here with out warning. Flies feasted on open mouths. Bellies shrank. Hope drained.
After which, the Arabs who managed that a part of the desert realised one thing: these migrants had nowhere to go. So that they had been used.
“They made us work,” Jimmy recalled.
Heavy lifting. Guide labour. Shifting stones. Carrying bricks. Constructing barricades. Filling sandbags. They had been made to haul granite underneath the open solar, barefoot and barely aware. And for all that, they had been paid with bread, rock-hard, spherical loaves you could not chew by way of, or, in the event that they had been fortunate, plain pasta boiled in water, served with out salt or oil or style.
“We labored like that for days, perhaps weeks,” he stated. “It is arduous to inform time while you’re within the desert and day by day looks like dying.”
Our bodies collapsed. Some stopped consuming. Some stopped talking. Nobody had the vitality to swat the flies that climbed into their noses and ears. The boys seemed like skeletons, the ladies like ghosts.
At their lowest, they determined to hope.
“We had been out of energy. Everybody was sick, hungry, and damaged. So we gathered within the sand, and with what little vitality we had left, we begged God to save lots of us.”
After which, one thing occurred….
Don’t miss Half 4 of Jimmy’s story subsequent Friday, the place the horrors of Libya take a darker flip, and survival turns into a check of the human spirit.
YOU MIGHT LIKE: Real Stories: I hired someone to beat up my cheating boyfriend, now he’s in a coma
