Chapter 3.
Arlit was a large town North of Agadez. That was the next place we found ourselves. The next man who came to pick us up was from Libya. He was light skinned like the Europeans and spoke French too.
I didn’t know how they were all connected to each other but that route had the largest human trafficking cartel in Africa.
Due to Language barrier, we had no conversation whatsoever with our new driver. He was also on a rickety Land Rover loaded with water and Gas. Nina and I were suddenly alone again with a new stranger.
The other two girls were handed over to a different crosser who had his own Land Rover. The Agadez was a large meeting and exchange point where the Libyans came to pick up the girls.
At Arlit, we rested and waited for the night. According to the rumour we heard in Agadez, the Government of Ghadaffi arrested people traveling to Italy and jailed them. The information had created fear and Panic in us and the worst was that we couldn’t even ask our driver any question.
I even wondered whether the Niger Republic had any kind of government at all. Agadez was filled with foreigners, mostly Nigerians, Malians and Burkinabes. There were a few Ghanaians and Ivoriens too.
It wasn’t just girls anymore, there were also equal or even more number of men there. All waiting to go to Europe through Libya.
It was 9pm when we left Arlit and headed North towards Libya. That was the longest Journey of all the Journeys. We drove the whole night and only stopped when the driver added petrol to his Pickup in the middle of nowhere.
It was difficult to sleep in that condition because we not only feared we could be raped or killed, we also feared the government forces could attack us.
On the morning of the following day, we entered a small city inside Libya.
The driver drove into a compounded and asked us to come down. We followed him to a house inside the compound where his wife, who understood some English words, explained to us that we would leave the town again in the night but with a public bus. She said it would take us the whole night and half day to get to Tripoli from the town.
They gave us more bread and some kind of meat pie to eat.
The wife showed us the bathroom where we cleaned up and changed clothes.
She showed us a room to rest and wait until our next journey. We relaxed and even slept and waited for our next journey to the unknown. I wondered if Italy was in Heaven to warrant people embarking on Such dangerous Journeys.
When we woke up and walked to the sitting room where the woman of the house was watching Television, she chatted us up.
“You are in luck. Sometimes people’s vehicles break down in the desert and they die”
“Die, why can’t other people see and pick them up on the road?” i had asked the woman. It was then that she gave us a shocking news.
“Because there is no road in the desert. Every driver just guess the direction and follow it. Its all sand and seconds after a vehicle drive past a point, the strong Breeze closes the tyre tracks and its all middle of nowhere again” she laughed.
I continued asking her questions. “But how does your husband know the way to here”.
She looked up at me. “He doesn’t know. He only guess like other drivers. He missed the road sometimes and end up having to go in rounds. If you travel the road in day time, you see people in far away walking or driving in different directions. But its good money for us”.
The good news according to the woman, was that we had gone through the worst parts.
We were taking normal buses to Tripoli in the night and we were going to drive on tared roads.
In the late afternoon of that day, the family fed us again. I didn’t know how much they were paid and who paid them but i gave a lot of credits to whatever ring that was responsible for crossing us through the massive desert. They knew what they were doing.
It was 6:30pm when we left the Wada town and took the night bus heading up to Tripoli. Most of the passengers were from other countries. Somwere there for trading business; especially the Igbo men.
The two people i chatted up inside the bus said they were from Onitsha Nigeria and were going there to buy vehicle spare parts. They also said they came through Kano State instead of Burkina Faso.
They made the Journey easier for us as we all talked deep into the night before sleeping off. We stopped in a small town outside Tripoli and took a private car to an already paid hotel room.
In the hotel alone, we were about 6 Nigerian girls, all waiting to be taken to Italy.
The man who took charge of us spoke English very well despite being a Libyan. He told us to call him Ali.
That was how we eventually found ourselves in Tripoli.
The city was very beautiful with flowers and clean roads.
They were many Nigerians there as well, some selling drugs while others did whatever job they found.
The hotel Manager came to our room after four days and asked for our names. When we told him, he said that a call came for us from Italy. We followed him to an office underground and waited for some minutes before the call came again.
The female voice asked if it was Aunty Pamela that sent us there and we agreed it was her, she told us hernname was Aunty Philo and that she was calling from Napoli in Italy.
She was friendly on the phone and asked how our Journey went.
She told us that someone would come down to Libya before one week to arrange for our travels. She also said that our hotel bills had been taken care of and that we shouldn’t be scared of anything.
Before she cut the call, she told us that the manager was responsible for our food and that he has been paid in advance. She also said that the manager would give us 100 Dollars each to use to buy things for ourselves.
That was a good news because that was the first money that we received since we left Lagos. But of course they knew that 100 dollars won’t take us anywhere.
It was just to show us that everything was rosy up there in Italy.
Chapter 4; The Stranded girl.
Nkem was an Igbo girl. I met her in Tripoli on my way to Italy in 1999. She was stranded in Libya and didn't know how to go back home.
Nina and I were out in the street one day when she walked up to us and asked us to help her with some money.
Initially, we told her that we didn't have money but when she summarized her situation to us, we gave her 10 dollars each from the little we were given at the hotel where we lived.
Nkem had come to Libya the same way we did but according to her, she had been waiting for her contact in Italy for three months.
The woman who was supposed to pick her up in Tripoli had not contacted her as at then and there was nothing she could do. She had been evicted from one of the cartel's hidden hotels all over the town and was forced to sleep in the same room with some of the Nigerians men hustling in the city.
"Why don't you ask the men to help you out?" I had asked her.
She had looked me in the face with agony and said "Nobody cares about anybody here. They are hustlers and hardly make enough for themselves. The few who had slept with me were kind enough to give me money for food so that i stay alive for them to climb again. Look at me, i don't even know if i am pregnant, i haven't seen my period for the month". She was crying.
Her story had moved us to the extent of giving her 20 Dollars which she grabbed as if her life depended on it.
From what she narrated to us, it was clear that our condition could easily turn to that if our Aunty Philo from Italy didn't show up. We couldn't imagine what we would do if that happened. "You can come and stay with us in our hotel but the bed is just for two people" Nina had told her. It was a chance she grabbed with both hands.
We had asked her to go and get her clothes but to our greatest surprise, Nkem said she had no other set of clothes except the Jean trouser and the blouse she wore at that time.
I didn't know if she was telling the truth or not but we ended up in our room that evening.
That was how she came to stay with us and use our clothes.
Nkem would wake up in the morning first and cleaned our room. All efforts we made to let her know that she was not obligated to do those things fell on a deaf ear. She was just a nice girl that found herself in the cold desert of Libya. One week after we met Nkem, our Aunty called again.
She said she won't be able to make it to Libya but said that the hotel manager would brief us on what next to do. "Aunty there is something i wanted to tell you" I had said on the phone. When she asked what it was, i told her about Nkem and her situation. Aunty Philo said that the money she sent to the hotel manager was to prepare Nina and I for our next phase of travel which was to cross the Mediterranean Sea to Europe. She said she didn't have more money for one more person and told us to just forget the girl and focus on ourselves.
"She is not the only stranded girl there. There are others and she knows" Aunty Philo had said.
Nkem knew i was going to speak to Aunty Philo about her; she had been reminding me to do that ever since she came to stay with us.
"She said there is nothing she can do for you" I had said to her.
It was the most difficult news i had ever given to anybody since i was born. There were tears in my eyes while giving her that news.
Nina herself knew she was going to cry for Nkem and as a result, she stayed away from us when i was telling Nkem what Aunty Philo said.
"What is going to happen to me when two of you leave?" She was all tears.
I told her to have faith in God. Have faith in God?
I had no idea what that meant but i said it anyway because there was nothing else to say.
A day after We spoke to Aunty Philo, the hotel manager came and announced to us that we would be leaving for the harbour the following night.
He asked what Nkem was doing in our room and we told him she was squatting with us.
He was very angry and said we should have taken permission from him before allowing anybody to sleep with us.
The worst part was that he ordered Nkem to leave the hotel immediately.
We tried to plead with him but he didn’t listen; he just called the security men to throw the girl out and that was the last time we saw her.
We stayed indoors the entire night and the next day until the manager came again and told us it was time to leave.
We got ready and went to his office where two tall men were sitting already.
After telling them we were the subjects, they nodded and stood up, shook the hands of the manager and asked us to follow them.
Outside the hotel, a black Toyota Carina 2 was packed.
We entered the back seat and they drove off. By a few minutes before 9pm, we got near the harbour outside Tripoli and stopped.
“No talking” One of them said to us as we got down from the car and followed them.
We walked for about 10 minutes before it happened.
One hundred Flashlights came on our faces at the same time.
Another ten voices shouted at us. I didn’t know what they shouted but the moment the two men leading us stopped and froze in one place, i knew it was trouble.
A large number of Police men emerged from the dark and put hand cuffs on us. We were led to a large truck parked somewhere and were pushed inside.
“No problem, you come out tomorrow” one of the men had said to us at the back of the locked pickup truck.
We didn’t know where we were taken but when we got to a facility, we were pushed into separate rooms and the cuffs were removed.
I needed nobody to tell me that we had been arrested by the authorities.
I wondered why those two men didn’t know the route was dangerous.
The worst part was that the authorities didn’t ask us any question. They just locked us up in separate rooms and left.
There was a small wooden bench inside the small room where i was locked.
I had no other option than to lie on it and forced myself to sleep.
I didn’t know what was going to happen to us next but i didn’t care much anymore.
Chapter five loading...