by
Pamela Kerpius

Recorded:
19 January 2024

Published:
3 April 2024

Meet Buba.

16 years old and from Brikama, Gambia.

To reach Italy he crossed six countries: The Gambia, Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Libya.

His journey began with a friend at his side, Yeussupha (Gambia), and a ferry that transported him along the Atlantic coast to Senegal. He took a taxi from the ferry terminal to a bus station, where he boarded a bus scheduled for a direct transfer to Niamey, Niger. The trip took 2-3 days and crossed multiple checkpoints.

“Give us money or we’ll lock you up,” Buba said various West African police authorities would demand of him. Even though his national ID allowed him transit beyond The Gambia, requests for bribes were instituted across checkpoints. He would pay in CFA (West African Franc), that probably amounted to around 15 or sixteen euros. If he didn’t pay, authorities would beat him, turn him away from passage, or threaten to keep his ID card—a vital item to navigate this part of the journey.

Anticipating this, he kept laminated multiples of his national ID card stored in the sole of his shoe, alongside extra cash he knew he’d need to keep safe. Controllers at checkpoints, Buba said, knew the bus routes. He has no way of knowing it as fact, but thought it was obvious they were in collaboration with the drivers. The bus probably stopped at a checkpoint every hour.

People on board would pool money to get everyone through, but sometimes it wasn’t enough. “Every stop someone [was] left behind,” he said. Buba and his new friend Malin supported each other. They became friends since the bus left Senegal, when they began spotting each other with cash to make it through.

He arrived in Niamey, Niger on a Friday, and left one week later, “Friday to Friday,” he said. People were getting robbed in public pay toilets in the city. “They say, ‘Give me money or I kill you, I stomp you,’” said Buba. With their money gone, some people got stranded.

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For Buba’s part, he stayed in a connection house that hummed like a small, unstable city.

“Thousands and thousands, you cannot count it,” he said, “You will meet people there you never expected you would meet there.” It was a flurry of people converging on the area, from many countries.

At 9:00p.m. the bosses started to move people inside. Women and children were included in the crowd, and all were being shuttled inside to a large, open space. There were no beds, just loose mats thrown on the floor. There was a small supply of bread, plus whatever other provisions people still had on them after travel. Some people would leave to find a restaurant because “we Africans love rice,” he said, when people would grow tired of the subpar food. Buba stayed inside. Vendors came to the compound with items to eat for sale too, a safer option for him than walking the streets.

The water he drank came from the tap. “If you see empty bottles [then] you go to the tap to fill it up.” He said it was salty, unpleasant, but luckily didn’t make him sick. He had to be thankful for the containers he happened to find, because without them there was no regular place to keep a store of water.

The next step was a bus to Agadez, Niger, a trip that took about two weeks. On arrival, the police arrested seventy or eighty people at the station, Buba was among them. It was a shaky situation and he was looking for a way out of it. People were just sitting on the ground under guard by policemen with guns strapped over their shoulders. It was “Ibrahim,” he said, “I remember that boy’s name,” who had the idea to run.

A toilet stall was about fifty meters away. He and Ibrahim picked up the kettle, but the soldiers protested and told him to just go on the ground. Ibrahim persuaded them though. They gave the pair three minutes.

“Let us try,” said his friend Ibrahim, and they took off running. A cascade of gunfire exploded as they jumped the fence and escaped the hold. Another 100 meters away, a motor bike, a taxi, was in sight. They went after it. “Take us anywhere you know,” they said, “just far from this place,” and they were gone.

Any which way they went, Buba already knew they would find more people who could tell them where to go next. Sure enough, they got word of a man named Malick, another Gambian, who had been living in Agadez for years. He helped orient them and coordinated a place for them to stay in a new connection house that was negotiated for the equivalent of about 300 euros. His stay was brief.

Buba crossed the Sahara desert in the back of a pickup truck with 27 people on a trip that would take about one week. Food and water was scarce. He ate packets of cooked spaghetti noodles, and in a jag of desperation drank from a well that was so dirty the water was almost black. “You don’t think about the dirtiness,” he said, when you’re that thirsty.

Every ten minutes more vehicles were passing with people. The truck transporting him got stuck in the sand dunes again and again. The passengers would pour out to give it a push while the engine whirred—it was one thing Buba liked about the experience, the sense of adventure. The sound of the motor grinding, the sight of the wheels spinning haplessly in the sand. Herds of camels passed, fifty or 100, he guessed, making their way through the desert too. Even some of the camels got left behind from exhaustion.

His first stop over the border was Bahye*, Libya, where he passed through briefly on his way to Sabha, which was also only a brief stop. He knew he was lucky his breaks there were so short. Others would get laid up there for months or more. On his arrival in Tripoli, Libya, he lost track of time, but figures it was a few months in the city, where he stayed with a friend, Ebrima, at his home, pooling money to pay the rent together.

Then, he continued onward to the coastal camp. Things got put in motion fast. He stayed at the seaside just long enough to say he was there. Smugglers tossed him the rubber boat and ordered him to prepare it. He pumped it with air, took it overhead and splashed it into the sea water.

Buba crossed the Mediterranean Sea on 5 June 2014 on a rubber dinghy with 104 people, including one or two women. The group spotted a ship, the “Panama.” One man took off his shirt, it was red, and waved it in the air to get the crew’s attention. On its arrival the Chinese seamen at the helm said, “One by one, we’re going to help you guys,” and amidst the panic and chaos, Buba and the others boarded their boat.

He was later transferred to the Guardia Costiera and landed four days after pushing off Libyan shores, at 10:00a.m. on 9 June 2014, in the southeastern Sicilian port city of Catania, Italy. A wristband was placed on his arm during arrival and processing, “like a new baby” at the hospital, he said.

He still hears from Malin, his friend from the bus from Senegal to Niger, who is now living in Malta—he says he should come visit. Buba is 26 years old now and living in Naples, Italy, where we recorded this story on 19 January 2024.

Buba is an amazing human being.

*City name and spelling unverified and written as spoken phonetically during interview.