Europe through the Mediterranean Sea

by Tunde Adeyemi (Nigeria)

A leap into the unknown Libya

After several months in Libya, I had somehow found my way to the last lap of my journey. I was on the queue like most immigrants trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea into Europe like the Israelite at the Red Sea. We arrived by dawn and the terrifying Mediterranean Sea made me froze. I had never seen such rage in nature before and it was as if the million voices of inevitability were screaming at me that this was where I’d die. I panicked. ‘What are you doing?’ asked, Zeki, a friend I was traveling with. ‘This is suicide!’ I pointed a trembling finger at the balloon boat being assembled by the human traffickers. They were patching some leaking holes on it with silicon glue. ‘We can’t get halfway on that thing before we became food for the fishes!’ Before that morning I’d survived traveling through the Sahara desert. I’d survived its furnace-like heat and its thousands of bandits. But watching the sea, I realized I’d rather go back to the crushing poverty that had made me flee Nigeria than continue this journey. ‘Every day we stayed alive in Libya where the locals, militants, and the police unleashed lethal violence on immigrants was grace,’ Zeki said pulling me closer. ‘I don’t think that grace has run out when we are so close to our dreams!’ Her words gave me courage. I took shuddering breathe and rejoined the queue. ‘Cut your nails with our teeth,’ warned Samir, the trafficker’s boss. ‘Remove zippers—anything sharp. If you don’t, you will deflate the boat and drown.’ Samir then approached me and asked: ‘can you drive a boat?’ ‘No,’ I stammered. ‘What happened to the driver?’ ‘He was killed last night,’ he said. ‘You know how to drive a car?’ ‘Yes,’ I answered. ‘Boats and cars are the same: steering, brakes and stuff. It’s easy let me show you.’ Samir and his armed men ignored my protest and forced me on the boat. ‘You see the controls are standard with cars,’ Samir said starting the engine. He drove it around briefly and asked me to try. ‘Don’t push her too hard,’ he cautioned. After a while, he said: ‘you my friend can drive a boat.’ I felt my lungs melting and took chest-expanding breathe. Samir picked another immigrant whom he gave a compass and radio. ‘Keep your eyes on the coordinates,’ he warned, ‘one wrong turn, you’d forever be lost at sea.’ By 10:00am, 270 immigrants were so tightly packed inside the boat that we could smell one another’s armpits. ‘Their lives,’ hollered Samir ‘is now in your hands.’ He jumped out of the boat shouting: ‘Allah Akhbar.’ It was time to leap into the unknown. I drove aimlessly at first as the sea was too rough. The dinghy resembled a dead fish tossed around by the waves. I badly wanted to use the toilet but Zeki’s reassuring smile got me going. An hour later, I had control of the boat. We didn’t run into the Libyan Navy and were soon on our way to Sicily. After nine hours, the moon emerged and sparkled on the flat sea. By 9:00pm, a fierce argument started as some of the immigrants disputed that I was going too slow. I angrily shut down the engine and asked someone else to drive. Some people begged me but I was done. Suddenly, something hit the boat from underneath; making it heave that nine people fell inside the water. At the moment, we were scared to death. We rescued those who’d fallen into the sea and I stared the engine again and sped the hell out of there. By 11:00pm, the sea showed its deadly color as we were at the point of drowning. The weather and waves raged in biblical proportions. Disturbing flash of lightning stabbed the sea around us. Everyone screeched and I screeched louder. The radio the traffickers gave us had long died. We were nowhere and then the rain came down on us like an angry god on his war chariot. I knew this was it. Then the Italian Navy emerged. I guess this wasn’t going to be my last story.