Migrants tell of rescue by Italian navy service facing an uncertain future

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/31/migrants-italy-navy-rescue-service

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Refugees and migrants saved from drowning in the Mediterranean have spoken of their gratitude to the Italian navy’s search and rescue operation, as political debate rages over its future.

Around one quarter of the 150,000 people rescued by Italian ships this year have been landed in Sicily’s port of Augusta, before being sent to reception centres in the Siracusa region, where the Guardian met some of them.

“We were rescued by the Italian coastguard, I owe my life to them,” said Khalid, a Pakistani journalist who fled death threats after his investigations touched on corruption among powerful political elites. “I feel very happy to be here now, and I am optimistic I will get asylum. The only bad thing is I am still next to the sea. Whenever I look in to the sea, all the pain of my journey comes back.”

Like other refugees, Khalid said he faced brutal treatment by his handlers in Libya, which has rapidly emerged as a central funnelling point for people trying to get into Europe. He paid to fly to Benghazi, and fled to Tripoli when he realised how much of the city had been destroyed. In the Libyan capital he was kidnapped, held prisoner at gunpoint, and sold on to another armed group who put him into forced labour in agriculture. Whenever he tried to escape the dawn-to-dusk hard labour in the fields, he was brought back by armed guards. He described being subjected to torture in which his hands were tied over his head while his feet were placed on oil until his legs did the splits. Eventually he was helped to escape and taken to the coast. “I had been running for months, I thought: death is behind me, death is in front of me, so I might as well try the sea.”

John, 36, a Christian car mechanic who fled the advance of Boko Haram in northern Nigeria earlier this year, was rescued by the Italian navy just over a week ago. He said he now felt safe for the first time in many months, but was still in deep shock.

John was still struggling to process his experience – he hadn’t always known where he was or who was controlling him as he passed first through Niger, then in to Libya and finally out to sea in the Mediterranean. His nightmare emerged in halting and disjointed flashbacks as we talked.

He and around 30 others had been kidnapped when they crossed into Libya: “They tortured all of us to give them a phone number to get money [from family], but two of us had no money.” He told of being beaten and then press-ganged when a battle broke out between rival Libyan militias. “They forced us blacks to bring ammunition along the lines, we had no [body] armour, no helmets, many died. It was very, very frightening.”

A group of them ran away and managed to get to the coast, where they were press-ganged again, this time into pushing broken smuggling boats out to sea. John managed to board one as it left; it was spinning out of control when the Italian navy came to the rescue. “I see what happened to other people and feel very lucky I survived. I love the welcome they have given me. I had nothing and they clothed me, they fed me. I give glory to God that I survived.”

His family did not yet know he was safe. He said he had lost all their numbers along the way.

Ebrime, 30, had arrived at the Siracusa reception centre from Gambia via Senegal, Niger, Libya, a rescue at sea by the Italian navy, and sleeping rough for months when his asylum application in Italy was turned down. After nine months in Italy, the scars of his journey were healing, although the indentations of a skull severely fractured in Libya were still visible.

He said he used to run his own business in Gambia but he didn’t want to talk about why he had left.

Having paid several thousand Senegalese francs to traffickers, he said he was led in to Libya only to be captured by a gang of armed young men who kept him imprisoned in Tripoli for a year. He was severely beaten as the gang tried to extort money from his family to free him. “I thought I would die,” he said.

Staff at Emergency Italia, an NGO that runs clinics for refugees say the duration of captivity varies by nationality, with Eritreans generally kept longest, in the belief that they have connections in Europe who can afford to pay. The gangs eventually release captives to maintain a throughput and cashflow from new arrivals. After a year, and having raised another thousand Libyan dinar to pay off his captors and the smugglers, Ebrime was taken to an inadequate boat to cross the Mediterranean and once again feared he would die. “But the Italian ship saved us.”

Emergency Italia has warned that if Mare Nostrum winds down, loss of life will increase.

“Whether you agree with what’s happening politically or not, Mare Nostrum has saved a lot of life, and that is the responsibility of a civilised country,” said Andrea Bellardinelli, Emergency Italia’s coordinator. “The trafficking will not stop. People are fleeing war or extreme poverty, which is a form of war. They will still take a chance. But if Mare Nostum stops, there will for sure be major loss of life again,” he added.

Nearly all the people Emergency Italia sees have arrived through Libya, which has become the main conduit country. The rescued have included those fleeing Syria, Eritrea, Pakistan, Mali, Gambia, Senegal, Ghana and Bangladesh. The vast majority report experiencing imprisonment, torture and/or enslavement as they try to transit through areas controlled by Libya’s heavily-armed militias.

Luca Corso, a doctor at Emergency’s clinic, told us the NGO had seen evidence of severe beatings, electric shocks to genitals, burns, plastic melted down the back of the neck, and sexual assault of women. Most of those arriving are suffering from trauma, the severity depending on their experience in Libya. “There is an extreme form of self selection during travel – those who survive and succeed in arriving are young and mostly strong,” he said. “The Syrians are generally highly educated, they are in shock. That has had a very strong impact on me, because they had been in a good situation economically and they have lost everything, and I think, ‘That could be me’.”

Additional research by Anna Bullard.

Names of refugees and migrants have been changed to protect their identities.