The new slave trade-human trafficking in Libya is being carried out by many nationalities, including Nigerians and Ghanaians, according to a Cameroonian returnee, who was abducted in the country.
Foka Fotsi, who was trafficked twice, told Reuters that those in charge of one of the places where he was held included Ghanaians and Nigerians. Fotsi story corroborated another testimony by a Nigerian in the southern state of Edo, who identified one Charles, a Nigerian as the trafficking kingpin.
Foka Fotsi- battered in a camp run by Nigerians and Ghanaians
Unable to find work to support his family, Fotsi decided to leave Cameroon last year, but fell into the hands of a Libyan kidnap ring before reaching Europe.
“There was torture like I’ve never seen. They hit you with wooden bats, with iron bars,” he said, removing the hood of his sweatshirt and showing the still raw red wounds on his skull.
“They hang you from the ceiling by (your) arms and legs and then throw you down to the floor. They swing you and throw you against the wall, over and over again, ten times.
“They are not human beings. They are the devil personified.” Christelle Timdi, another Cameroonian recounted her horrendous experience in the north African country.
Christelle Timdi, another Cameroonian recounted her horrendous experience in the north African country.
When uniformed men boarded the overloaded rubber dingy carrying her and her boyfriend to a new life in Europe, she thought the Italian coastguard had come to rescue them.
But the men took out guns and began to shoot. “Many people fell in the sea,” the 32-year-old Cameroonian said as she described seeing her boyfriend, Douglas, falling in the water and disappearing into the darkness.
The gunmen took Timdi and her fellow passengers back to Libya where they were locked up, raped, beaten and forced to make calls to their families back home for ransom payments to secure their freedom.
Timdi, who flew back to Cameroon last week, told her story as international outcry escalated over a video which appeared to show African migrants being traded as slaves in Libya. Libya’s U.N.-backed government has said it is investigating and has promised to bring the perpetrators to justice.
Timdi said she had not seen the footage broadcast by CNN, but had witnessed the trade in humans while in Libya.
“I saw it with my own eyes,” she said, describing how she had seen a Senegalese man buying an African migrant. Libya is the main jumping off point for migrants trying to reach Europe by boat.
Timdi said many traffickers posed as marine guards, police officers and taxi drivers to ensnare victims. There were around 130 other migrants on her boat when the gunmen opened fire in the middle of the night, Timdi said. After being taken back to Libya they were locked in an abandoned factory building where men would grab and rape the girls and women – and sometimes even the men.
