Half 5 recap: In Libya, Jimmy’s nightmare deepened. Betrayed by a fellow Nigerian and compelled into one other jail, he turned a barber, reducing hair with blades and combs for each captors and captives. It wasn’t freedom, however it was survival. Simply when it appeared the routine of struggling would by no means finish, a brand new terror approached.
Catch up right here: Part 5: How a Nigerian teen trafficked through Libya became a celebrity barber in Europe
The Escape
Simply when Jimmy thought the worst is likely to be over, or possibly that it could by no means finish in any respect, battle broke out within the camps.
Insurgent fighters stormed the world. Weapons. Bombs. Grenades. They got here to raid and take over.
Jimmy remembered the sound of bullets ripping by means of corrugated metallic. Fences torn aside like paper. The thick, choking smoke from grenades thrown carelessly into buildings the place males like him had been nonetheless locked up.
In that chaos, one thing shifted.
Everybody ran. Screaming. Scrambling. Some barefoot, some bloodied, some already midway lifeless. Prisoners scattered in all instructions—no plan, no information, simply intuition. Jimmy ran too. He misplaced certainly one of his closest buddies that day. A brother-in-struggle who had been with him because the journey started. One minute he was there, the subsequent, gone, swallowed by the smoke, the gunfire, and the insanity.
However one way or the other, Jimmy made it out.
He and some others sprinted by means of the slim alleys of town, by means of winding streets and damaged compounds. They ran previous deserted automobiles, charred doorways, our bodies they did not dare look again at. They did not cease till the gunfire was far behind them.
Finally, they discovered themselves in one other a part of Tripoli. There, they discovered others like them; Ghanaians, Nigerians, Somalis. All camped close to the shore, ready for one thing, something, that might take them throughout the ocean.
Jimmy was seventeen. No cash. No meals. No passport. Simply scars and a small comb with a rusty razor blade. However he had survived this far. And that was one thing.
So he set to work.
He washed automobiles, hauled baggage, carried water, and cleaned compounds. Something anybody would pay a number of cash for. And thru all of it, he stored reducing hair proper there on the road, by the roadside, behind parked vehicles, in corners the place the wind could not blow the hair too distant.
He saved each coin.
It wasn’t a lot. However for a month or two, they scraped collectively what little they may. He and some others took it to the smugglers—the faceless males who ran the boats throughout the Mediterranean.
“That is all we have now,” they stated. “Please, assist us get to Italy.”
The smugglers did not say a lot. Simply nodded. And that was it.
For 2 weeks, they slept by the shoreline, surrounded by the identical silence that had haunted them within the desert, besides this time, it was the ocean whispering. They watched individuals go away earlier than them. Some by no means got here again. Some boats capsized. Others drifted off and had been by no means heard from once more.
The Harmful Crossing
When their flip lastly got here, there was no announcement, no preparation, and no second ideas. Simply one of many males strolling as much as Jimmy and the others by the seashore, muttering two phrases:
“Let’s go.”
They had been all loaded onto a kind of black rubber dinghies, packed shoulder to shoulder. Over 100 individuals crammed. Our bodies pressed collectively, sweat mixing with salt air, hearts pounding.
It was by no means meant to carry half that quantity. However nobody questioned it. They pushed off. And similar to that, the land disappeared behind them, swallowed by the darkish.
There have been no lights. Solely the groaning of rubber underneath stress, the nervous shuffling of limbs, and the ocean slapping towards the perimeters of the boat like a warning.
At first, there was silence.
Some individuals whispered prayers. Others cried quietly. The remainder stared blankly into the blackness. Just a few held palms. Most held their breath.
Jimmy sat within the center, eyes on the horizon, physique frozen.
They drifted for hours.
The boat heaved with every wave, rising and falling like a chest struggling to breathe. With each bounce, water splashed in. First, only a few drops. Then puddles. Then panic.
The water started pooling at their ft, and it stored rising. When individuals observed it was getting severe, panic set in. Everybody began speeding to 1 facet of the boat, attempting to keep away from the half the place the water was coming in.
That weight shift capsized the boat.
Identical to that, they had been within the water. Screaming, splashing, drowning.
Would they make it out of this watery hell?
Discover out in Half 7 of Jimmy’s story subsequent Friday, solely on Pulse.ng.
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