The young Liberian man went through hell, but when he reached Libya he hoped that there he’d be able to make a living and get an education. Instead, he entered another hell of imprisonment, then near death at sea.
The ordeal of Laye Donzo is a cautionary story for the tens of thousands of Africans each year who take the migrant road to Libya, seeing it as the gateway to life and prosperity in Europe. Instead, for many the war-torn country has meant only torture, imprisonment, rape or death.
It also illustrates the problem for European countries trying to stop the stream of migrants to their shores. By trying to prevent them from taking the dangerous sea journey across the Mediterranean, they are dooming the migrants to prolonged abuse in Libya at the hands of authorities and the country’s many militias, rights groups warn.
Donzo was among dozens of Italy-bound, would-be migrants rescued off the coast of Libya on June 23 by the Aquarius, a boat chartered by the charity Doctors Without Borders and the rescue group SOS Mediterranee.
On that day, the Aquarius rescued two boats, one of them after nightfall when the captain happened to spy it in the spotlight just as he was giving up the search. Then it took on hundreds more from an Italian navy ship so it could deliver them to shore while the navy vessel continued the search.
So as it headed back to Sicily, the Aquarius was swelling with more than 650 migrants, well over its official capacity of 400. The exhausted migrants – men, women and young children – crowded on the ship’s decks and in the halls, wearing white overalls distributed by the aid group and wrapping themselves in gray blankets.
After the initial shock from days on open water subsided, the tales of trauma and torture they endured in Libya poured out.
Donzo and his family had fled the civil war in his homeland Liberia to neighboring Sierra Leone. There, many in his family died in an Ebola outbreak. So Donzo made his way to Libya, where he did various jobs, mostly construction.
Early this year, he was detained by armed men at a checkpoint.
He spent the next five months imprisoned in a house with hundreds of other Africans, eating a single meal every three days. He’s not even sure who detained him. In lawless Libya, the lines between criminal gangs, militias and the security forces of rival governments are often blurry.
“They beat you like animals,” he said. “As long as you’re in prison they would beat you. I don’t know how many times they beat me. They beat everyone.” He showed scars running along his back, legs and arms from being bound and hit with rubber tubes.
Then one day they blindfolded him, took him to the coast and forced him into a boat. He has no idea why.
After the fall of Moammar Gadhafi in 2011, Libya was plunged into chaos, with rebel groups evolving into militias loosely aligned with various competing governments or operating on their own and carving out fiefdoms around the country. The collapse of state control and enforcement of borders proved a draw for migrants. Some militias use smuggling as a revenue source.
But the chaos has also made Africans vulnerable to abuse, whether they are working in Libya or seeking to head on to Europe. Armed groups often detain Africans, ostensibly claiming to be enforcing the laws but really just to extort money or labor. Various factions run detention centers largely on their own without answering to central authorities.
On the Aquarius, Baba Ali, from Mali, said he was detained by local fighters in the town of Bani Walid, east of Tripoli. He was held captive in a factory-turned-prison along with 1,500 other Africans. He sat down and hugged his knees to show how tightly they were squeezed in.
“It was packed,” he said. “We couldn’t sleep, we had to sleep sitting down.”
Ali said he and the others were forced to work in construction and menial labor and were beaten regularly.
Their captors fired in the air to intimidate them. Ali escaped during the holy month of Ramadan. Others had to pay to get out.