Caught Between Continents

Sunday, Oct. 10, 2004 By VIVIENNE WALT | TRIPOLI

Out Of Africa: Illegal immigrants detained on the Italian island of Lampedusa were flown promptly back to Tripoli

ELIO DESIDERIO/AFP-GETTY IMAGES

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But in Libya, the reality is far from paradise. While most Africans describe the Libyans as cordial, some say they've been cursed at and pelted with stones. And many Africans in and around the El-Fellah camp have given up on making it to Europe. "We're fed up," says one Ghanaian man outside the camp. "If we can't go to Europe, we might as well go home." Libyan officials have begun gathering illegal immigrants at these transit points to save them from "dying in their quest," says Ghanem, an American-educated economist. In Rome, the aid organization Doctors Without Borders worries about conditions in the camps and condemns the new Italian policy, charging that genuine refugees could be turned back along with economic migrants. The critics say that for those who do make it — however briefly — to European shores, the new rapid Italian airlift puts them back into Libyan hands without any guarantees for their rights and well-being. "This is a very cynical and politically motivated shortcut that is not only illegal but violates fundamental respect for human beings," says Loris De Filippi, head of the Italian branch of Doctors Without Borders. "If this policy is the future, we need to know what's happening in Libya."

Despite the crackdown, Africans on the streets of Tripoli display little fear of arrest. Hundreds of migrants roam the city looking for work in the dazzling sun. Agustin, the student from Benin, washes cars about 100 m from the Prime Minister's office, on a block closely watched by security officials. A few kilometers away, Egyptians squat on the sidewalk on a busy street near the seafront, looking for odd jobs. Out in the western neighborhood of Saraj last Thursday, six Sudanese friends stood on a street corner for hours after hearing rumors that a British company had opened for business nearby. "I've been here three months and I've had no work," said Mohammed Ibrahim, who traveled by bus from southern Sudan last July. "I would like to go on to Europe, but I don't have the money."

In Tripoli's walled old city, Alou Mahamadou, 30, sat idle in a chair on the sidewalk last Thursday, nine months after arriving from Niger. He had tried for months to earn boat fare to Europe,

This is a cynical shortcut that violates respect for human beings

— LORIS DE FILIPPI, Doctors Without Borders

while also sending regular payments home to support his two infant boys. Now his European dream is fading. "The routes seem too dangerous now, and they make you pay too much," he says.

The smuggling trade may be one of Libya's most profitable homegrown industries, with boat fares to Lampedusa ranging from $900 to $1,900 per person. Late last week, a group of illegal Africans hunkered down in safe houses near Zuwarah, waiting for smugglers to assign them to boats to Italy, according to one resident with connections to the trafficking business. He described the operation to Time, sitting in the backroom of a Tripoli store. "It's a very well-organized system," he said, adding that one full boat can earn smugglers about $24,000. "When the weather is good, the boats go every night."

To try to intercept those boats, Italian police began joint patrols on the Mediterranean earlier this month with Spanish, Portuguese, British, Maltese and Slovene officers. And now that the E.U. has agreed in principle to lift its almost two-decades-old arms embargo against Libya, the Libyans plan to acquire new jeeps, helicopters and boats of their own to beef up the country's coastal security. But as long as Africans believe their only hope of a better life lies in Europe, people like Samuel Agustin will try to make the desperate journey.