by
Megan Lloyd

Recorded:
21 January 2022

Published:
28 February 2022

Meet Sarjo.

17 years old and from Gambia.

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

His journey took about six months. He left in June of 2015, he remembers it was during Ramadan.

He took a bus from Gambia to Senegal and then from Senegal to Niger, passing through Mali and Burkina Faso. He would sometimes have to wait for the bus to be completely full before it would leave on the next leg of the route.

There were many stops during transit, and during them he and the other passengers would sleep outside on the ground. In Mali, he slept outside for four days with just his jacket.

It took three weeks to travel from Gambia to Niger. His first stop in Niger was Agadez, where he remained for three days.

Sarjo crossed the Sahara desert in the back of a pickup truck with around 26-36 men onboard. There were too many people in the truck. People were crying, “My leg, my leg,” because the pressure was so tight on their limbs. One man fell out, and everyone on board banged on the sides of the car to get the driver to stop and turn around. The desert crossing took five days.

The pickup truck took him to Bayyah*, Libya where he stayed for about one month in a housing camp with other men from across Africa. There were no women in this specific camp but he saw other women and children from other camps in Bayyah.

He called his family to send him money so he could continue to pay for the journey.

In Bayyah, he would have to go outside to “see some weird people to find jobs,” he said. He went to the street corners in the city to look for work to earn money to pay for the housing camp, buy food, to continue his journey, and ultimately to survive.

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He did jobs like cleaning. After he got the money he needed to pay his smugglers, he took another pickup truck to Sabha, Libya. The traffickers paid people with cars to transport people like Sarjo; he climbed in the car and was off. The journey took about six hours.

He spent two days in Sabha in a housing camp with about 35 people. In Libya, he says there were places to drink clean water for free in the street that came from public access pipes.

He took another pickup truck to Tripoli with about ten other people that took about two days. The drivers drove very fast and he never felt safe. “You just risk your life when you say you want to go,” Sarjo said.

He met many people who had been in Libya for two or 3 years and were still unable to make it out. They would pay a smuggler money but would often get scammed. The smuggler would take their money and leave, he said, “If you haven’t been there, you cannot understand.”

He specifically said there were men who would come into the city and stay in hotels and pretend to help people cross over. Once they were paid they would leave town and people would be left with nothing.

“Sometimes you pay money and they fail you. You can’t tell the police….everything is corrupt there. Even the police, they have their own business,” said Sarjo.

His Gambian friend, Ousman, is still in Libya and has been there for about six years. Everytime he pays someone to help him cross the sea to Europe, his money gets stolen. “It’s a big business,” he said, but his friend is still trying.

“I’m lucky, very lucky,” said Sarjo.

In Tripoli, he stayed in a large indoor housing camp for one month and three weeks. He saw many camps in Tripoli with around 1,000-2,000 people inside. He slept on a blanket or a mat on the hard ground. He was fortunate to have access to bathrooms.

Again, he would get water from open spigots in the street. He did not feel safe when he would go out for food. People would get stabbed, shot, or have their belongings stolen when they would go shopping.

He needed to pay 20 dinars per month for housing, so he had to find work. Ousman, his Gambian friend who is still stuck in Libya, got him a job selling big containers of juices and sodas to stores.

There were men, women, and children in the housing camp in Tripoli. He says that sometimes the local Libyan men would come to the camps drunk and take women and rape them. He saw women on the streets working as prostitutes in order to make money. They were not allowed to do any other kind of work. There were many brothels around.

One night at the camp in Tripoli they got word that people were coming to rob them. They tried to escape. Sarjo jumped a tall fence and caught himself on it. They all eventually came back safely to the camp. He still has a big scar on his chest from where the fence snagged him, but he was too afraid to go to the doctor because it was so dangerous outside.

If anyone in the camp was shot or wounded, those around them would do their best to help, since going to the hospital was not an option. If they went to the hospital, they could be hurt even further or taken to prison.

Sarjo crossed the Mediterranean Sea in a large wooden boat at 12:00 midnight on 25 November 2015 with about 450 people, including women and children, many of whom were from Somalia, Nigeria, Eritrea, and possibly Morocco and Libya.

He was one of the first people to be loaded onto the boat and he sat underneath, below deck. He was able to sleep part of the night. He was scared. But those above on deck were more so. He could hear the crying and praying. People were calling on God. He prayed too.

“You gotta pray you know, ‘cause you don’t know where you’re going,” Sarjo said.

A helicopter started circling at 4:30pm and at 5:00pm a rescue boat arrived, transferring him and the others aboard. Sarjo landed in Messina, Sicily, the next morning on 27 November 2015.

He is 23 years of age now and living in Tarragona, Spain where we recorded this story on 21 January 2022.

Sarjo is an amazing human being.

*City name not verified