Nigeria: The return of migrants

February 26, 2018

Credits: Le Quotidien

After the CNN report last November, where migrants were sold as slaves, Nigeria repatriated from Libya many nationals. Obi Chuks Kingsley, who himself endured a martyrdom in the Libyan desert, collected testimonies of some "ghosts" - like him - who have been kidnapped, beaten and sometimes even sold.

When I look back on the days spent in the Sahara desert, I cannot help crying. The memories come back: the constant harassment, the brutalities, the hunger, the lack of water, the cold nights in the desert. This nagging chest pain that has resisted all the mistreatments is here to remind me. Then, I tell myself that I could have passed. "Hey man, there's something in you that the whole world envy you. It's your resistance. You are a survivor." At the end of my journey that lasted several months, I thought I saw corpses everywhere, nestled between the dunes that engulf our dreams. The most unbearable was the suffering inflicted on girls, continually assaulted and raped continuously. I saw all that. And then, one day, I went back home in Nigeria.