Time to halt death of Nigerians in the Mediterranean Sea, By GBEMIGA OLAKUNLE

“The coffins of 26 Nigerians lie in state in water seashore at a cemetery in Southern Italy where a bishop and imam led prayers for all the female victims. According to the online news portal-Information Nigeria, the Mediterranean sea claimed 60 other lives in the fateful accident off Libya 15 days ago, but these bodies sank.

 

Young people who died at sea for nothing but a piece of bread. It’s not worth it, says Samla Ba, a 48-yearold Senegalese worker who has been living in Italy for 15 years. Nearly 3,000 men, women and children have died attempting the perilous crossing since the beginning of the year. According to the United Nations, 50 percent of young Nigerian women arriving Italy are already in the clutches of prostitution workers, of quickly fall under their control’’.

 

While working on this article, I stumbled on this exclusive report online titled: People for sale: where lives are auctioned for $400. The report states, inter alia, “Not a used car, a piece of land, or an item of furniture. Not merchandise at all, but two human beings. One of the unidentifi ed men being sold in the grainy cell phone video obtained by CNN is a Nigerian who he appears to be in his twenties and is wearing a pale shirt and sweatpants, he has been offered up for sale as one of a group of ‘big, strong boys for farm work’, according to the auctioneer, who remains off camera.

 

Only his hand – resting proprietarily on the man’s shoulder – is visible in the brief clip”. And in order to verify the authenticity of the video, CNN reporters reportedly travelled to Libya to investigate further. Carrying concealed cameras into a property outside the capital of Tripoli last month, the CNN reporters witnessed a dozen people go “under the hammer” in the space of six or seven minutes. According to the report, after the auction, the CNN undercover reporters met two of the men who had been sold (into slavery).

 

They were so traumatized by what they had been through that they could not speak, and so scared that they were suspicious of everyone they met. What is the reason for this modern day slave trade being practiced by the human traffickers/smugglers?

 

According to the CNN report, each year, tens of thousands of people pour across Libya borders. They are refugees fl eeing confl ict or economic migrants in search of better opportunities in Europe. Most have sold everything they own to finance the journey through Libya to the coast and the gateway to the Mediterranean. But a recent clampdown by the Libya coastguard means fewer boats are making it to the sea, leaving the smugglers with a backlog of would-be passengers on their hands. So the smugglers become masters while the migrants and refugees become slaves.

 

This is the fate that has been befallen a lot of Black-Africans including many Nigerians who had been embarking on ill-fated voyages to Europe from Libya through the Mediterranean Sea in recent years. Some of them who couldn’t make it to Italy and the other European countries ended up being sold into slavery in Libya and Saudi Arabia.

 

Those who managed to cross over the death zone to Europe found themselves practicing prostitution (willingly or unwillingly). And in extreme cases, some of them ended up on the slaughter slabs of smugglers/ human traffi ckers, who kill their victims and sever their organs for sale to hospitals who need such vital organs for treatment of their patients!

 

This group of wicked smugglers are called human parts dealer whose activities and mode of operation have been extensively covered in our previous articles in this column. Interested readers should visit our blog site: gbemigaolakunle. blogspot.com and read article like “Nigerian Youths as endangered species abroad” and other related articles on the subject matter.

 

The said articles were published when the Vice President Yemi Osinbajo was Acting President while President Muhammadu Buhari was on medical vacation in London. Maybe in his capacity as the Acting President then, if Osinbajo had gone through the said articles which were circulated on both the social online media and the mainstream media, he would probably have acted promptly to prevent the recent unfortunate incident. While the recent action taken by the Presidency in constituting a high level committee to investigate the untimely death of these young Nigerians is welcome, it may be an exercise in futility if the federal government fails to address the remote and immediate causes of exodus or mass emigration of Nigerian youths to Europe through the Mediterranean Sea despite the attendant risks.

 

These causes have been identified and addressed in our previous articles already mentioned. In a nutshell and for the avoidance of doubt, we pointed out how Nigerian youths, among other Black Africans are being sold into slavery in Saudi Arabia while those who managed to escape to the Asian countries like China ended up in the hands of body parts dealers who allegedly murdered them and harvested their vital organs for sale.

 

We, therefore, enjoin/appeal to the federal government to put machinery in place to rescue our fellow Nigerians from the captivity they found themselves in these foreign lands as soon as possible, in the short run. In the long run, the government should recover more looted funds with a view to improving the standard of the living of more Nigerians by creating favourable economic and climate job opportunities at home. Meanwhile, we commiserate with the federal government, especially the bereaved families of these young ladies who probably maybe unaware of the cruel fate that has befallen their loved ones in their journey of no return in search of the so called “green pastures” abroad. We pray that the God of all good comfort will comfort them while the souls of their departed loved ones/wards rest in perfect peace.

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