Man my wife and my pikin die on the way to Europe for the desert to know how it happened
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- Author, Nour Abida
- Role, BBC News
- Twitter,
- Report from London
Pato’s wife and five-year-old daughter died in the Tunisian desert last year during their sixth attempt to emigrate to Europe.
Over seven years ago, Mbengue Nyimbilo Crepin, alias Pato, said he fled Cameroon after they killed his sister and burned down his house because he was unwilling to join the army.
First I go to Nigeria and finally I move to Libya, where I have lived for seven years. There I meet his wife Fati and have a daughter, Marie.
Between 2016 and 2022, the family made five unsuccessful attempts to cross the Mediterranean to Italy in search of better education opportunities for Marie.
On July 13, 2023, they tried to leave Libya for the sixth time and crossed the border into Tunisia. But Pato says the Tunisian authorities pushed them back into the desert.
On July 15, they cross the border again to seek medical help, but the police drive them back into the desert.
“Death is slowly coming toward you,” I said, remembering the conditions in the desert.
In 40 °C heat they receive neither food, water nor a compass.
Pato is fighting to survive and feels like he is dying. He stays behind, thinking that his wife and daughter have a better chance of reaching safety without him.
“The heat has suffocated you. You are very thirsty. You have no strength left.”
“You can only wish death to come quickly. But it is so slow that it is like being eaten by scavengers. This is not the worst pain I have ever suffered in my life,” I said.
“Death is slowly coming towards you”
After a day of lying in the desert, Pato is rescued by Oda migrants. I return to Tripoli to look for my family. Days later, one of my friends shows photos on social media of two lifeless bodies lying in the desert. Immediately I recognize that my daughter and his wife are together.
Pato Kotinu tries to get to Europe and finally reaches Italy via the Mediterranean.
Now I have a temporary residence permit and am waiting for asylum. I am learning welding and waiting for the school year to start so I can take language courses. I say I want to live a normal life.
“I don’t feel pain, I feel pain inside me. And sometimes I blame myself and say I’m not living while they suffer. I’m angry at life,” I said.
Migration crisis
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The number of Africans travelling to North Africa to emigrate to Europe is increasing.
For 2023, the UNHCR will register 209 percent more refugees for Tunisia than for 2020.
Many flee their home countries because of the poor security situation.
According to a joint report by the UN refugee agency UNHCR, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the Mixed Migration Centre (MMC), to be published by 2024, nearly five million people are displaced due to the new threat from the Sahel region.
This number will increase further due to the conflict in Sudan that will break out in April 2023. According to humanitarian partners of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, over 10 million Sudanese have fled their homes, including over 5 million children, and over 2 million refugees have crossed the border into neighboring countries.
“On land, we are experiencing massive displacement as a result of two crises: the Sahel, the war in Mali and Burkina Faso, and on the other side of Africa, the war in Sudan,” says Vincent Cochetel, UNHCR Special Envoy for the situation in the Western and Central Mediterranean.
According to UNHCR, the victims are also on the move because of droughts and floods in the East and Horn of Africa as a result of climate change.
But despite the high risks of crossing the desert, Libya’s attractiveness as an informal labour market and its geographical proximity to Europe attracts thousands of people hoping for safety, work, education or family reunification.
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The road to Libya
The route that most migrants take to Libya starts in Burkina Faso or Mali. From there they cross Niger and enter Libya either directly across the southern border or through Algeria.
Smugglers crossing Niger only take migrants as far as the Libyan border. After the migrants cross the border, they are picked up by another group of traffickers and usually held for long periods in the south of the country.
“Many of them are exploited in southern Libya, many of these women are forced into labor and sexually exploited,” said Vincent Cochetel of UNHCR.
Cochetel says there are many economic opportunities for those who enter Libya and neighboring Tunisia, where there is a backlash against migrants. But there are also dangers.
“Sometimes traffickers hold them for ransom and then post videos on social media to force families to send money,” I said.
The human rights organization Amnesty International receives documents about attacks against migrants by armed groups and the Libyan security forces.
“These include arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances and torture,” says Olivia Sundberg Diez, Amnesty International’s EU representative for migration and asylum issues.
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Death for the desert
According to the independent data and research institute Mixed Migration Platform (MMP), more migrants die crossing the Mediterranean than crossing the Sahara.
Between 2021 and 2024, 1,031 migrants are reported to die in the desert, compared to 8,381 at sea.
But these numbers don’t tell the whole story.
“One in four people tell us they know someone who died in revenge,” said Vincent Cochetel of UNHCR.
“They didn’t see anyone they saw in person. Either they were abandoned by the trafficker, or they fell off a truck, or it was someone who was sick and they abandoned them.”
“When it comes to shipwrecks, we get numbers, we get more precise data. We cannot calculate the number of fatalities. But the witness statements suggest that there are more fatalities,” he said.
Cochetel says a major problem is the lack of protection for Pipos entering Libya.
“79 percent of passengers arriving in Europe tell us they would not have undertaken the dangerous journey if they had known about the risks on the route,” he says.
The BBC has contacted the Libyan and Tunisian Interior Ministries for comment, but the BBC has not received a response.
Where does this photo come from? Getty Images
Pato said in memory of his daughter Marie: “Marie dreamed of becoming a boxer. She told me that when she grew up she would be a world champion,” he said.
“She is full of life. When something goes wrong, she is my source of motivation.”
