“If they saw this cross, they would have killed me.”
Ashar* and Dina*, both 24 years old, come from Eritrea and crossed the Mediterranean Sea via Libya in July 2024.
*Names have been changed and both survivors are not shown on the pictures to protect their identity.
Ashar: My name is Ashar, and I come from Eritrea. I left Eritrea in 2018. It is not a peaceful country. In Eritrea, when you don’t have any education, and you are over 18, you must be a soldier. There is no time limit, all your life. Men and women. After you finish school, you go to the military. You work there for 6 months, then you study theoretically for 6 months. Then you have an exam. If you get a good score you can go to college, if not, you become a soldier. So, for two years I was in the army. I had to get out, and I went to Ethiopia.
Dina: My name is Dina. I come from Eritrea, and I am a graduate of computer maintenance. After I graduated, I did not find a job for 10 months. Without a job I couldn’t help my family.
Ashar: From Eritrea to Ethiopia, we crossed the border by foot. For me, as a soldier, it was illegal, so we had to hide on the way. I lived and worked in Ethiopia for four years. We came by Sudan to Libya. When we arrived in Libya, at the Kufra border, they put us in a container, like a warehouse. Many people stay there, and you can’t get out. Only when you pay. Life is so hard in there, so hard. Many people die in there, I saw it with my eyes. And I heard many stories. When you come from Eritrea to Ethiopia, it is normal. We are the same people, with the same religion, same language. In Sudan too. But not in Libya.
We were lucky. We paid immediately. We paid, that’s how we got out. But many of our friends are still there now. I cannot explain the situation, it is so hard.
When they beat you, when they shout, they call your family, or they record the sound and send it to them.
Because of that, many girls have unwanted pregnancies and mental problems. I am lucky that I was not touched.
Ashar: From Kufra, we took a Tundra car, a pickup. The men go in the back of the truck. The women go inside the car. In a regular car you can carry five people, but here, 20 get in one car. They force you to get in. So you cry for a long time. For two, three days. When you get out, you can’t walk. You can’t run. This is hard for the women. For the men, they are outside in the back of the truck. We were maybe 26 on one truck. You sit like this, you can’t move, cramped together. And you don’t eat. It’s cold during the night, and hot when it’s day. When you say “I am not comfortable”, they hit you to scare you.
When we arrived in Tripoli we got kidnapped. We were put in a prison under a house. When we went inside, they beat us. There was a woman who was pregnant in there. She gave birth in there, in the prison. We heard about that. She gave birth in her clothes, and she didn’t get any medicine. She only got one diaper for the baby. In the prison, they gave us pasta only. The taste is not good, but if you want to live, you must eat. There are many friends of mine who died in there. They got weak. And when you die, they take a blanket, and they cover you and throw you in the Sahara. I have a friend in there, he has been in prison for four years. They shot him, because he didn’t pray. But we were lucky, we got out in one day.
In Tripoli we had to pay much more for the rent of our house than other people. Normally, when you buy pasta, it is one dollar. They gave it to us for three or four dollars. So it’s hard to live there. I believe in orthodox Christianity. I had to hide every day. If they saw this cross, they would have killed me.
Dina: Because in Libya, they are Muslim. The religion is Islam.
We were afraid of them.
Ashar: In Libya, humans have no rights. They talk about money only. Even a little boy or their sons make fun of you. They can slap you, everything. They have small knives. The kids, five years, three years: “Give me your money, give me your phone”.
Dina: Because you are Black.
Ashar: We cooked and ate only in our house. We lived like that for three or four months. Then we wanted to go and try by boat. So we went to Sabratha and stayed there a month.
It was our first attempt, we are lucky. Very lucky. At 3 a.m. we started the journey to the camp. They told us that it was a fiberglass boat, but they sent us with a rubber boat. It was hard to see that, because you lose your hope, but you don’t have any choice. If you try to go back, they shoot you. So: no choice.
Dina: I was so sick in the boat because the smell of the fuel. There were many people around me, pushing. I was vomiting. It was very difficult. I couldn’t eat anything. I had too much pain.
Ashar: I was sitting on the plastic. On the keel. She was in the bottom of the boat. So I picked her up to get her fresh air. But it was dangerous. If someone fell over, the whole boat would capsize.
Dina: Everybody is happy because [we were rescued].
Ashar: Our happiness is not to see Libya again, because we know what life is like there.
We are both graphic designers. So, if we get the chance, we want to open our own small shop [in Europe] to earn our living. And I want to help people. Like you. I love to help people.
Dina: My hope is to work as a Photoshop designer. When I go to Europe, I would like to get more education about photography, about computers. My dream is to be a photographer.
This interview was conducted and recorded in English in July 2024 by communications coordinator Lukas Kaldenhoff onboard Humanity 1.
