Sub-Saharan African workers targeted in Libya

Ras Ajdir, Tunisia - On the edge of the temporary tent camp 10 kilometres from Tunisia’s border with Libya, Augustine Emianah stands in line, waiting to make a free phone call to his parents in Ghana.

The 30-year-old plasterer had left his hometown Accra in 2010, snaking across Burkina Faso and Niger by bush taxi, minibus and on foot to reach Libya, searching for work. “It wasn’t an easy journey,” he says. “But I thought it would be worth it. I planned to stay in Libya for several years and earn enough money to send to my family back home.”

Like most of the 1 000 Ghanaians who have fled to safety in eastern Tunisia, Emianah didn’t expect to leave Libya so soon. But less than a year after his arrival in Libya, he has been driven out by continuing unrest that has exacerbated racism towards migrant workers from sub-Saharan Africa. When he left his rented apartment, he packed his mobile phone, CD player, radio and wallet into his hold-all. By the time he crossed the border, strung out between olive groves, scrubland and low-slung white mosques, all he had were the clothes he was wearing.

“When we reached the border, the security guards took everything,” he says. Other West Africans at the camp have similar stories. Leaning against the eucalyptus trees that thrive on the edge of this scrubby patch of hamada, between date palms, aloe vera plants and growing mounds of trash, they share memories of what they have lost. They make up a small representation of Libya’s migrant workers from sub-Saharan Africa.

According to UNHCR, about 100 000 were working legally or illegally in Libya until recently. But Human Rights Watch says that evacuation efforts have not adequately included the plight of African workers. “Sub-Saharan African workers are in dire need of evacuation because of the threats they face in Libya,” said Peter Bouckaert, the group’s Emergencies Director. He said they are particularly vulnerable amid reports that Muammer Gaddafi flew in black mercenaries to attack anti-government protesters.

“We experienced racism from both sides,” says Emianah. “The government does not like us because we are black and the others are afraid of us because we are black. We had no choice but to leave.” For Kwame Apeah, life as a migrant worker in Libya was good until about two years ago. “For a while after I arrived, things were great. I had steady work, something I rarely had in Ghana, and I’d made Libyan friends,” he said. “But then the police started cracking down on black workers in Tripoli. They didn’t want to see us, and accused us of trying to reach Italy. Some friends were rounded up and thrown in jail.

Another friend was shot in the arm,” he added. In Benghazi, a separate camp for displaced sub- Saharan Africans has been established for at least 1,200 migrant workers, including those from Somalia, Ethiopia, Niger, Mali, Cote d’Ivoire and Sudan.

click to enlarge Tunisian volunteers form a chain as they unload a truck with water bottles to be given to stranded people who fled Libya and are at Djerba Airport inTunisia, on 05 March 2011, waiting to get flights back to their home countries © EPA