by
Pamela Kerpius

Recorded:
7 April 2021

Published:
14 April 2021

Meet Mohammed.

16 years old and originally from Sierra Leone. He moved to The Gambia when he was a boy.

To reach Italy he crossed six countries: Gambia, Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and the most dangerous of all, Libya.

His journey took about 9 months.

He traveled by bus through West Africa with his uncle, named Alpha, until they reached Agadez, Niger. In Agadez, he spent two months in hiding, with scant food and poor quality drinking water.

Mohammed crossed the Sahara desert in the back of a pickup truck with 21 people, all tightly packed together. There was a convoy of trucks, each one filled with many people. He would see people buried in the desert. He saw other trucks broken down, “Not everybody makes it,” he said. The journey through the desert with only bad well water to drink was two days before reaching Gadron, Libya.

At his next stop in Sabha, Libya, where he remained for four months. He was kidnapped for one month and free for the other three. He would go out for work during the days, but he was not always paid. There is the promise of pay when he started, but it didn’t always come through.

He stayed in a compound with more than 100 people, he estimates, but really the people around him were “uncountable.” The food he was able to have was acquired on his own, and “sometimes you don’t eat at all,” Mohammed said.

Many around him were taken to prison and held for ransom. None were freed from traffickers until they or their families paid the ransom. Traffickers continue to beat their prisoners until the money comes through. “Some end up losing their lives,” Mohammed said.

His uncle Alpha, however, made an agreement with their traffickers to continue on, and they arrived in Tripoli and remained there for one month. He was locked inside the entire time for the fighting going on in the city – there were open gun shots on the streets.

He had little food and only salty tap water to drink during this time. He moved on to Sabratha with his uncle where they remained for three weeks. But the seaside camp was so overcrowded he was forced to sleep outside under the elements. It was wintertime and cold.

One night, Mohammed and Alpha got the call that it was time to push off the shore. It was a Thursday at about 9:00 or 10:00p.m. in January 2019. Mohammed was directed to one boat, and Alpha to another.

Mohammed crossed the Mediterranean Sea in a rubber dinghy with over 100 people, including more than 20 women, some of whom were pregnant; and more than 10 children and babies. One man onboard died after drinking from a canister of petrol that he mistook for water.

Mohammed was at sea for eight or 9 hours before he was rescued by a ship from the Italian Red Cross. He spent three nights on board, and landed in Catania, Sicily on January 28, 2019.

He was waiting to hear from Alpha. But his uncle’s boat capsized in the sea and he died. We met Mohammed, now 18 years old, on April 7, 2021 in Baexem, Netherlands, where he gave us this story.

Mohammed is an amazing human being.

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