African migrants wait for work in Tripoli that might pay eventually to take them to Lampedusa in Italy. Credit: Karlos Zurutuza/IPS.

By Karlos Zurutuza
TRIPOLI, Dec 8 2013 (IPS)

Youssef crossed the Sahara desert with a folded school map of Europe in his pocket. “Could you please point [out] Lampedusa in the map for me? I cannot find it.”

The 28-year-old Nigerian undertook an arduous journey from the capital Abuja to Libya in the hope of some day making it to the Italian island of Lampedusa, 600 km northwest of this city.

“There are no direct flights from Abuja to Tripoli, so I came overland. I paid 800 euros for a five-day journey across the desert on top of a heavily packed truck. They told me to tie myself to it as they would not stop if anybody fell down,” he tells IPS.“Boats usually stop going by November due to difficult sea conditions, but there is still a slight chance of leaving before the year ends."

Libya continues to be a gateway for thousands of undocumented African migrants who are willing to risk its violent militias, harsh detention centres and often fatal rides on overloaded, rickety boats to set sail for Lampedusa – for them the closest point in Europe. Even Asians have been found to use Libya as a transit point.

As they dream desperately of greener pastures, the migrants do odd jobs to earn enough to pay for the boat ride.

Youssef stands by the roadside holding some roller paint. It’s easy to spot him among the dozens of sub-Saharan Africans who stand under the Gargaresh bridge south of Tripoli, until somebody picks them up for a day of work.

The average daily payment for this kind of work is 20 dinars (12 euros), but not everyone is lucky enough to find work at this rate.

“Last week I worked for 10 hours in a row at a construction site, but they didn’t pay me anything at the end of the day. When I started to complain, they put a gun to my head and told me to go away,” recalls Suleyman, a 23-year-old Malian who can hardly wait to leave Tripoli “forever”.

“I’d rather go back home as this is no life. Clashes between militias are constant here and I often get into trouble with them just because I’m black,” he says. “As soon as I have enough money, I’ll head for Lampedusa or it may be too late.”

Work is scarce and the competition severe due to the growing number of migrants gathering in Gargaresh. The charge for a seat on one of the many boats leaving the Libyan coast is around 1,000 dollars. Even if an exhausting day of work is fully paid for, it could take years to save a sum like that.

Besides, there is always a chance of missing the boat.

“Boats usually stop going by November due to difficult sea conditions, but there is still a slight chance of leaving before the year ends,” says 27-year-old Christian.

According to him, growing instability in Libya is pushing many to take greater risks to make it to Lampedusa despite the rough sea.

During the regime of Muammar Gaddafi, Libya turned into a major transit point for African migration to Europe. Gaddafi had famously asked European countries for money to stop the flow.

After he was ousted and killed in 2011, the number of those fleeing the north has increased as lack of security has made it easier for human traffickers to operate.

“Amid growing unrest in the country, the current Libyan government is too busy to monitor the coast. Now our main hurdle is the waves,” a human trafficker told IPS on condition of anonymity.

He admitted to earning around 20,000 euros from each successful trip to Lampedusa. Payments, he said, were only accepted on arrival and through an intermediary in Tripoli.

But the coast is not unwatched.

Imran, 21, came all the way from the Pakistani part of Kashmir to end up sailing aimlessly on a boat for three hours before they were captured by the Libyan coastguard.

“The captain simply didn’t know the route and he got lost,” recalls the young Kashmiri, who spent three months in jail after his first and only attempt to get to Lampedusa.

Despite the harsh conditions at the Libyan detention centre, he still claims he was lucky. “We were around 50 in the same cell, but at least the guards never hit me. For the black guys, though, it was completely different. They would be tortured and beaten in the most brutal way and on a daily basis.”

Women, he adds, were asked for sex in exchange for their release.

His testimony is corroborated by an Amnesty International (AI) report released last June, where the human rights NGO called on the Libyan government to end indefinite detention of refugees, asylum seekers and migrants, including children, who had ended up there solely for immigration purposes.

After visiting seven “holding centres”, AI also documented several cases where detainees, including women, were reportedly “subjected to brutal beatings with water pipes and electric cables.”

Imran hopes to try a different boat next time.

“I only paid 500 dinars (300 euros), but the cheap boats, most of them run by Somalis, are the ones that never make it. Next time I’ll try one run by Syrians. They’re way more expensive, but most of them reach shore,” claims Imran, who now works at a hotel as a cleaner.

Elijah, his workmate, is considering the possibility of joining Imran in his next attempt. So far only one thing has prevented him from taking the last step – the risk involved.

“Even if you pay the regular 1,000 dollars fee, you cannot see the boat until the very moment you leave. And they won’t let you pull back,” explains the 28-year-old from Arlit in northern Niger.

The migrants and even local fishermen know only too well the risk of getting into a packed, fragile, raft-like boat.

As Abdala Gheryani, who works at the tiny fishing port of Gargaresh, says, “Every now and then I find corpses trapped in my nets.”

A police officer on the lookout at a spot near the southern town Galle often used by people to board boats to Australia. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS.

By Amantha Perera
COLOMBO, Sep 22 2013 (IPS)

It was a decision based on simple sums. Ananda, 28, from Weligama in the southern Sri Lankan district Matara decided to risk it all boarding a boat to Australia last year because he never had enough money.

“I was working as a driver in someone’s three-wheel taxi and making around 25,000 rupees (180 dollars) in good months,” Ananda (name changed) told IPS. “I was fed up.”

He paid 300,000 rupees upfront, all from his mother’s savings, and joined a group of around 50 men for the 6,800 km journey that could have taken a month.

His voyage did not last long. He boarded a multi-day trawler after reaching it about three kilometres from the coast in a smaller boat around midnight. By lunch time next day he was back on shore.

“Someone gave a tip and the Navy was waiting for us about half an hour into the journey,” Ananda said.The hard-line strategy appears to be working. In the last year the number of boats that have reached Australia from Sri Lanka has dropped.

Ananda was among at least 10,000 Sri Lankans who attempted the risky journey to Australia by boat last year. According to the Australian Department of Citizenship, 6,428 made it into Australian waters.

Sri Lankan authorities say they foiled the attempts by more than 3,000 last year. An unknown number are suspected to have perished at sea.

Ananda is from the Sinhala majority but only around 1,000 Sinhalese made it by boat to Australia last year. The large majority of those who take to the boats are from the Tamil minority from the war-ravaged north-east.

Kanan is a young man from Kilinochchi, the bustling economic nerve centre of the northern Vanni region. Devastated by a three-decade conflict that only ended in May 2009, the town is slowly recovering. For Kanan and many other young men like him, that recovery is too slow.

“There are no jobs here, none at all,” Kanan said. Unemployment in the region is the highest in the country, between five and eight percent according to government statistics but up to three times that according to independent analysts.

Kanan traveled to the eastern coast last August through a fixer in Kilinochchi who arranged for a spot in a crowded boat.

“I paid 100,000 rupees, the rest was to be paid by my family once I got there,” he said. The full cost was around a million rupees (7,000 dollars). His boat broke down six days into the journey and Sri Lankan naval vessels towed it back to the coast.

Kanan has returned to his native village, is still unemployed, and still harbours dreams of a richer life somewhere else.

Kanan says his decision to take the rickety boat that was using hand held GPS locators to track its route was influenced by the post-war political and security climate in the north. “I am always looked at with suspicion by security forces and police.”

The Australian government has toughened its laws to deter boat people. Since the middle of this year those detained from boats detected in Australian waters will not be given Australian citizenship even if their refugee claims are successful. They would have to settle instead in the Pacific islands Nauru or Papua New Guinea. The Australian government has also launched a major public relations campaign against taking boats.

The hard-line strategy appears to be working. In the last year the number of boats that have reached Australia from Sri Lanka has dropped. By the end of August this year, 1,957 Sri Lankans had reached Australia on boats, less than a third of the boat arrivals in 2012.

The new right-wing Australian government is expected to bring stricter measures such as turning back boats, removing options to review refugee claims, and reducing refugee quotas.

The Australian government action is based on the conclusion that the bulk of the illegal boat travellers are ‘economic opportunists’.

Emily Howie, director of advocacy and research at the Melbourne based Human Rights Law Centre, told IPS that economics did play a big role in motivating people to take the boats, but the decision was influenced by many other factors. “Sri Lankans take boats to Australia for a complex, interconnected mix of economic, political and security issues,” Howie said.

She has published a research paper titled Sri Lankan Boat Migration to Australia, Motivations and Dilemmas in which she argues that turning back boats is not the solution to stop Sri Lankans trying to come by sea.

Howie told IPS that the cases of 90 percent of Sri Lankans who have sought refugee status in Australia after arriving by boat have been found to be genuine. “Instead of cutting off options, Australia should work with other countries in the region to ensure safe, viable paths to protection for those who need to seek it.”

Other analysts say the biggest motivator has been and still is financial. “Economic desolation is the fundamental cause for migration abroad even among ex-combatants,” Muttukrishna Sarvananthan, an economist who heads the Point Pedro Institute of Development, an economic research centre based in northern Jaffna in Sri Lanka, told IPS.

He said he carried out a survey in the northern regions of the island in late 2010, specifically targeted at groups like former combatants, youth and single women. His findings were that more than 70 percent declared poor living conditions the main reason for wanting to leave the country.

Another 41percent said they were also influenced by lack of opportunities. Only 14 percent said that the security environment was the main reason they wanted to flee Sri Lanka.