by
Pamela Kerpius

Recorded:
17 October 2022

Published:
21 October 2023

Meet Mehrteab.

18 years old and from Eritrea.

To reach Italy he crossed four countries: Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan and Libya.

In total his journey took about one year, which began on foot—not in a car by taxi or by bus, but with one foot in front of the other, he walked from Eritrea to Ethiopia.

Mehrteab was in hiding for two weeks in a small city in Ethiopia before being shuttled by car to Sudan by a trafficker. He was in Sudan, in the capital Khartoum, for four weeks. Then, in another car operated by traffickers, he was taken to Libya. Sometime after crossing into Libyan territory he was stopped by police, arrested and imprisoned for five months.

“Eritrean business people,” he said, helped him arrive at his next destination after being released from prison, to Sabratha, Libya. The notorious seaside holding camp had a “big house” where he remained for two weeks among a total of 2,000-3,000 people. It was hard for Mehrteab to know how many exactly, but it was enough to outnumber the resources available for his comfort and basic needs. It was impossible to shower every day, for example. Instead, he washed himself closer to every five days while at the camp.

It was the autumn when Mehrteab pushed off the Libyan shore and crossed the Mediterranean Sea in a wooden boat with 350 people, half of whom were women, and numerous others were children. He was at sea for five or six hours before he was rescued and landed in Sicily, Italy, in October 2015. He was immediately put on a bus and transferred to Milan, Italy.

He is 25 years of age now and living in Martinszell, Germany, where we recorded this story on 17 October 2022.

Mehrteab is an amazing human being.

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