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MONDAY, JUNE 15, 2015

EXODUS Desperate migrants, a broken system Tiny Gambia’s big export Cellphones, smugglers and rising expectations engender a flight from

by Kevin Sieff percentage of the total, with about 64,600 IN DAMPHA KUNDA, GAMBIA arriving last year. This year, the figure is expected to be even higher. Gambia, one of he village was losing its young men. Africa’s smallest ­nations, is a big contribu- Hundreds had left their thatched- tor to that flow. Troof huts and tiny squares of farm- To deter the arrivals, European poli- land for the promise of Europe. About 40 cymakers have proposed reinforcing their had died on the way. naval forces in the Mediterranean, con- Susso knew nearly all of them. He had ducting mass deportations and destroying prayed at the funerals after their boats cap- smugglers’ boats. When Susso turns on the sized or their smugglers stranded them in radio in the bedroom he shares with his the desert, ceremonies with mourners but wife and six children, he hears all the ways no bodies. The grim toll complicated his Europe is trying to dissuade him from leav- plan, turned it into a secret he hid from ing. almost everyone. But it has never been so alluring — or He, too, was preparing to join the exo- so easy — to begin the trip. Over the past dus from Dampha Kunda. two years, sub-Saharan Africa’s smuggling Africa has never seen such a flood of networks have expanded, as has young men heading for Europe. The num- ­descended into chaos, leaving its coasts ber of migrants crossing by sea to , a unguarded as migrants set out for Italy, a top entry point, nearly quadrupled from few hundred miles away. 2013 to 2014, reaching about 170,100. Stories of Gambians arriving on Ital- Sub-Saharan Africans made up a growing ian or Spanish shores now reach even MONDAY, JUNE 15, 2015 KLMNO PAGE 2

PHOTOS BY JANE HAHN FOR THE WASHINGTON POST At top, Susso, 38, plays with his children, niece and nephew at home in Gambia. He has saved $500 to travel the “Backway” to Libya and then Europe. Above is the bus he will take to a way station in . MONDAY, JUNE 15, 2015 KLMNO PAGE 3

remote Dam- he Western Route,” experts call A perilous pha Kunda via the web of migrant trails from Facebook and “T Gambia, and that path out text message, now lead to . But Gambians like rumors of a have a different name for the dangerous of Africa . Most path to Europe: the Backway. men keep their “Say No to the Backway,” reads a gov- to Europe plans a secret ernment banner near Susso’s village, with a until they leave, picture of a boat capsized in the ocean. fearing an out- “Backway bad way,” says a song funded cry from worried relatives or arrest by the by the U.S. Embassy in Gambia and played country’s authoritarian government. Susso on the radio here. asked that only his last name, common in Across Africa, there are different paths eastern Gambia, be used in this article. to Europe and different reasons for leav- In the weeks before his trip, he veiled ing. In , refugees flee the brutal al- himself in routine, waking every day at 5 Shabab rebels, following an “eastern route” and working on the rice farm of the vil- winding through . In , they lage’s richest family. He played with his escape a harsh military regime. children, most of them half-clothed in torn And Susso’s reasons? He walked by shirts and underwear, telling them nothing them one day in the scorching heat shortly of his plan. before he would depart, homes in sandy Then, one day in May, Susso opened a lots with numbers painted on the walls. drawer hidden under a yellow blanket and House No. 1027, a mud-baked hut, was removed a small metal box with a silver getting a cinder-block addition, thanks to padlock. He counted the money: 17,000 money from a relative in . House 301 dalasi, about $500. It had taken him three boasted a flat-screen television, thanks to years. It was enough to begin the journey. remittances from Germany. And House 311 Twice a week, a bus called the “TA had a big red tractor. Express,” full of young men wearing san- “So much money,” he sighed. dals and carrying small bags, clatters past Poverty had once imposed a kind Dampha Kunda on its way to Agadez, a of uniformity here — every house with a desert city in Niger that smugglers use as thatched roof and dirt floor, every meal a a way station on the route to Libya and small portion of rice and okra, every job Europe. tending to patches of rice on a small sub- Soon, Susso told himself, he would be sistence farm. on it. Then the wealth gap that had always separated Europe and Africa began to MONDAY, JUNE 15, 2015 KLMNO PAGE 4

PHOTOS BY JANE HAHN FOR THE WASHINGTON POST The market in Brikama Ba, a village in Gambia.

insinuate itself here. If you had a rela- ambition yielded almost nothing. tive in Europe, you were rich. If not, you A growing number of Gambians are remained stuck on the edge of survival. It literate, but with “little chance at employ- filled Susso with an envy that bordered on ment that matches their skills, just like anger. He was 39, broad-shouldered and China by the and by the ,” sleepy-eyed, older and wearier than most said Joel Millman, a spokesman for the of the men making the journey north. International Organization for Migration. Susso could afford only two meals a “So they do the rational thing and they day for his family. He knew he would have leave.” to pull his four sons out of school in their The Gambian government hasn’t early teens, so they could work his small helped. Its longtime dictator, President rice field or make money elsewhere. He , has preached a life of sub- shared his two-room home with 12 people, sistence. He has created a bizarre mythol- including his brother, nieces and nephews, ogy around himself as a man who could a bedsheet hanging where the front cure AIDS and threatened to personally should be. slit the throats of gay men. He has brushed Like so many Gambians, no mat- off the thousands of men fleeing his coun- ter how much he was willing to work, his try as failures and bad . MONDAY, JUNE 15, 2015 KLMNO PAGE 5

PHOTOS BY JANEPHOTOS HAHN BY JANE FOR HAHN THE FOR WASHINGTON THE WASHINGTON POST AboveAt top, the right, market a tractor in Brikama in the Ba, avillage village inof Gambia. Dampha At centerKunda right, owned a tractor by a in Gambian the village ofwho Dampha lives Kunda in Europe owned by a Gambian who lives in Europe and driven by Susso, who plans to take the “Backway” to Europe with andmoney driven saved inby a Susso, small metal who box, plans center to left. take The the tractor’s “Backway” owner, Alagi to Europe Ceesay, with has sent money home enoughsaved moneyin a small that metalhis family box, tore center down their left. home The andtractor’s built two owner, large buildings Alagi Ceesay, of concrete, has including sent home a room, enough above, money where Ceesay’s that his familyphoto is tore displayed. down “Life their has home been good and to built us,” his two brother large says. buildingsI For more of photos,concrete, go to including washingtonpost.com/world. a room, above, where Ceesay’s photo is displayed. “Life has been good to us,” his brother says. IFor more photos, go to washingtonpost.com/world.

But even the farmers of Dampha­ valuable natural resources, where the gov- Kunda knew migrants were the true suc- ernment dominates what little private sec- cess stories. Twenty percent of Gambia’s tor exists. now comes from “The only people who can make any remittances, according to the , money in are those very close one of the highest percentages in Africa. to the president. If not, you’re making $100 It’s a nation with almost no industry or a month, if that,” said C. Kebbeh, an MONDAY, JUNE 15, 2015 KLMNO PAGE 6

economist and expert in Gambian migra- rice fields atop a big red tractor. The new tion, now at the U.S. Bureau of Economic two-story houses rose above the old, mud- Analysis. colored huts. Across much of the cropland, Not far from Susso’s house, there was plants were ailing. With the rising prices, a massive billboard with a picture of Jam- few people could afford fertilizer. meh, smiling in a white cap. “Grow what The tractor was an extraordinary lux- you eat and eat what you grow,” it said. ury in a place where almost no one owned a For Susso, that policy had one palpa- car. But it didn’t belong to Susso. Its owner ble impact. “We’re hungry,” he said. “We’re lived in Europe. always hungry.” The first major wave of Gambians left villages like Dampha Kunda in the 1990s, usso had memorized the way Dampha mostly for Spain. By 2010, there were Kunda looked from eight feet off the 65,000 Gambians abroad, around 4 per- Sground, as he bumped through the cent of the population. One of the men sending money home was Alagi Ceesay, the owner of the tractor. Ceesay had left for Europe in 2002. Back then, the journey was expensive and often futile. Because Libya’s borders were well patrolled, migrants traveled through . Still, they were typically apprehended before crossing the Mediterranean. Ceesay made it through. He found a job in a factory in Italy, where the economy was boom- ing and authorities looked the other way when men arrived from Africa to work. Ceesay sent between 200 and 300 euros home a month — as much as $450. His family tore down their home with its thatched roof and built two large, rectangular buildings out of con- crete. Ceesay’s photo now hangs MONDAY, JUNE 15, 2015 KLMNO PAGE 7

on a cream-colored wall, as if he were sur- if poverty had narrowed his field of vision. veying his grounds from the frame, a proud He obsessed over the success stories, the man in a shiny suit. men like Ceesay. “Life has been good to us, praise God,” He thought about how much wiser he said Foday Ceesay, his brother, sitting would be with the money. He would send beneath the picture. his children to private school. His family By 2008, Ceesay was earning enough would eat meat for dinner. He would build to send $9,000 back to Dampha Kunda in a more beautiful compound than Ceesay’s, a single Western Union transfer — enough one that wouldn’t flood during the rainy for a down payment on the big, red trac- season. tor. Susso has been driving the tractor for “It’s worth risking my life,” he said. three years for the family, earning around “The Backway is my only chance.” $5 a day. “All day, all I think is that I wish this ere was Susso’s plan: In the city tractor was mine,” he said. of Agadez, Niger, he would meet By 2009, cellphones had arrived in Ha smuggler who would take him Dampha Kunda, and Susso’s battered silver to Libya. And from Libya, after working Nokia began to fill with numbers of Gam- and saving more money, he would board bians in Europe. Their boats had arrived, the boat to Italy. The development of the but many of them had been taken directly migrant route meant he could pay for the to an immigration detention center, which journey piece by piece, one smuggler con- Gambians referred to unironically as the necting him to the next. If everything went “campus.” They could spend months or right, the trip would cost around $2,000. years there, seeking legal status. The more When he revealed his plans to a few you picked away at the stories of those people, even the ones who disagreed with who had made it to Europe, the slimmer his decision were hesitant to admonish Susso’s chances seemed to be of succeed- him. A few days before he boarded the bus, ing. “I know what the risks are. I know it’s Susso went to the village’s imam, Saikou very hard,” he said. “Making it to Europe is Drummeh. luck.” Drummeh convened a group of men Susso’s family hadn’t had much luck. who had studied the Koran, and they prayed One of his cousins had been left by his over Susso. It wore on the imam to see a smugglers to die in the . succession of men leave on the dangerous Another had drowned at sea. Susso himself odyssey; he had lost his own brother to the had made two previous attempts, and both Backway when the man’s boat capsized. had failed. He couldn’t even swim. “But what can I do?” the imam said. Susso knew the realities, but it was as “They’ve already made up their minds. MONDAY, JUNE 15, 2015 KLMNO PAGE 8

PHOTOS BY JANE HAHN FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

At top, Fissa, 33, sits on his bed at his house in the Gambian village of Perai. Like many other men in his village, Fissa plans to take the “Backway” journey overland from Gambia to Libya, then board a boat to Italy. Above left, Isa puts away his backpack on a bus as he begins the trip from , the capital of Gambia, through several other countries before making his way into Europe. Above right, women pound grain near a tree and livestock in Perai.

There is nothing for them here.” formers. “A lot of people are planning to go Last year, the U.S. Embassy held a the Backway, and they didn’t see the reason concert called “Say No to Backway,” paying to go to a concert like that.” 12 musicians to record songs about illegal Even Gambian migrants themselves migration and perform them in an amphi- are trying to persuade their countrymen to theater. “But not many people came,” said stay home. Nfalamin Gassama, a Gambian Fattoumattah Sandeng, one of the per- in Italy, started a Facebook group called MONDAY, JUNE 15, 2015 KLMNO PAGE 9

“Difficulties Faced by Migrants in Libya” journey is step by step. This is the first one,” to underscore threats of kidnapping and he said. extortion. It was dark when the bus left Ban- Instead of deterring people, though, jul, driving through the city’s sprawl, past Gassama was flooded with messages from stores called European Fashions, Swiss people who needed a smuggler’s contact or Secondhand Goods, German Enterprise. more money to pay their way. It continued on Gambia’s only highway, a “The whole country is running for two-lane road that splits vast acres of scru- their lives,” he said. bland. The white bus pulled up in downtown It passed the village of Dumbuto, Banjul, Gambia’s capital, on a warm Friday where last month a teenage boy quietly sold night, glittery streamers hanging from its his family’s only cow to fund his journey. It windshield and palm-tree air fresheners passed the house of 20-year-old Buba, who dangling from the ceiling. had been kidnapped in Libya on his own The men waiting for it were typing text journey. His brother, Lamin, was repairing messages and making final calls on their bicycles for $5 a day to pay the kidnappers cellphones to their families. A 19-year-old their $350 ransom. named Amadou was dialing his smuggler The television on the bus played in Niger, but the call wasn’t going through. an American action movie starring Will “He told me to call him, but he doesn’t Smith, flashing scenes of car chases and answer,” Amadou said, exasperated. money falling from the sky. Amadou’s Some of the men sitting at the bus smuggler finally called him back. “Let me stop in the 100-degree heat clutched win- know when you get to Agadez,” he said. ter coats. They had been warned that in the It was well after midnight when the lands north of Libya, they should be pre- bus neared Susso’s village. He was sleeping pared for rain and cold. in the one room he shares with his wife and The journey through West Africa to six children. Under his bed he kept a photo Libya once could take months. Now, thanks album. A few days earlier, he had pulled to the bus, it’s a six-day drive. out a picture of himself and four friends. The men awaiting the bus hardly look “Everyone else has already gone the Back- like men at all, each in his late teens or early way,” he said, referring to the men in the 20s. One sold a laptop computer to afford photo who had left Gambia. the $150 bus ticket. Another worked for a Susso wasn’t ready to catch the bus year baking bread at a restaurant. Another that night. He still had a few last-minute got a loan from a neighbor. things to do. He had to follow the instruc- A skinny man working at the bus sta- tions of a traditional healer, giving away tion came out to survey the crowd. “The food and other charity in exchange for good MONDAY, JUNE 15, 2015 KLMNO PAGE 10

fortune. He had to buy the small knapsack center, were beckoning every day by text he would fill with clothes and photographs. message. He had to reveal his secret to his mother. “They tell me, ‘We’re here. We made it. He was growing restless. The men It’s okay,’ ” he said. in Europe, even the ones at the detention [email protected] ABCDE

TUESDAY, JULY 21, 2015

EXODUS DESPERATE MIGRANTS, A BROKEN SYSTEM

JAVIER MANZANO FOR THE WASHINGTON POST In Agadez, Niger, migrants take their positions on the back of a pickup truck headed for Libya. For more images, go to washingtonpost.com/world. Smugglers’ haven in the

he smuggler walked past The route to crammed with Africans roar off the diaper aisle, through Europe for many in a weekly convoy bound for the back door of the con- Libya, the threshold to Europe. T African migrants venience store and into the For Musa, an expert in sneak- metal shed where the migrants passes through ing people across the Sahara, it were hiding. the underworld was time to get ready. It was a Monday in one of of a city in Niger He walked around the the world’s human-smuggling BY KEVIN SIEFF white Toyota pickup parked capitals, the day when trucks IN AGADEZ, NIGER next to the shed, loaded with TUESDAY, JULY 21, 2015 KLMNO PAGE 2

One last stop before a trek across the desert: A Saharan city run by human smugglers jugs of water. Then he glanced at the clus- if his truck broke down in the 120-degree ter of 30 people waiting to climb atop the heat, he and the migrants might survive no load. more than two days. He knew that his pis- One of them was an 11-year-old girl tol was little help against the bandits who from , sucking a lollipop. roamed the Sahara. But he also knew how Another was a mother who held her wail- to bribe the police and military to let him ing 6-month-old baby. Next to them, 27 pass. And he knew the desert as well as men, from five countries, shifted their eyes anyone. Or he claimed to. nervously between Musa and the truck. If So this Monday, like every other Mon- they weren’t caught or stranded or killed, it day, he and his brothers counted the men would take them three days to get from the and women who had arrived at the stash stash house to Libya. house tucked behind the gray storefront “We need to leave soon,” Musa said, advertising soap and baby food. examining the truck, its windows tinted, its had set. The migrants were covering their license plate missing, prayer beads hang- faces with scarves. Musa strolled past them ing from the rearview mirror. in a long white robe, as if preparing for a Since the 15th century, Agadez has leisurely drive. been one of the ’s most important He had permitted a Washington Post trading hubs, the gateway between West reporter and photographer to spend a week and North Africa. Now, it is a city run by observing his operation — a rare window human smugglers. into the world of migrant smuggling. Like Across the developing world, migrants several others interviewed for this article, and refugees are leaving home in historic he spoke on the condition that his last numbers. Increasingly, they are turning name not be used. to smugglers, who load them onto flimsy “Before we had migrants, but not ships or overcrowded trucks for treacher- like now,” Musa said, standing next to his ous journeys that kill thousands each year. truck. “Now, there are so many that I can’t Authorities in Europe and Asia have vowed remember them all. Every week, the trucks to crack down on the multibillion-dollar are full.” industry. But the business of human cargo Outside his mud-walled compound is thriving. were dozens of other stash houses, which Musa, 38, knew the risks. He knew that locals call ghettos. They were hidden TUESDAY, JULY 21, 2015 KLMNO PAGE 3

Passengers pray during a sandstorm at the side of the road on their journey to Agadez, Niger. Migrants are routinely harassed by police and military personnel. behind homes, next to and mar- across West and pour into ket stalls, part of the city’s secret geogra- this desert outpost every week. The major- phy, the architecture of a booming illicit ity are fleeing abject poverty. Others are economy. escaping violence in Mali, northeastern It is a boom driven by the collapse of or the Central African . the Libyan government, which has left a Many have only one thing in common: vast stretch of North African coast virtually They arrived in Agadez with Musa’s phone unguarded. But just as important has been number. Africa’s explosion of cellphones and social networks, which have linked smugglers to onissa had stepped off the bus in potential migrants. Agadez the previous night, just after “Now, in sub-Saharan Africa, you’re K11 o’clock. He had been traveling for never more than two conversations away three days from the , and his from someone who can get you to Europe,” legs felt stiff and heavy. When he walked said Tuesday Reitano, a human-traffick- through the parking lot, men started ing expert at the Global Initiative Against approaching him, his small black backpack Transnational Organized Crime, a think giving him away as a migrant. tank. “You going to Libya?” they asked in Hundreds of men and women from French and Hausa. TUESDAY, JULY 21, 2015 KLMNO PAGE 4

“You need some help?” ents and siblings and their children. But Konissa, 25, already had a contact “Je suis arrivé,” he said to Musa. “I’m in Agadez. His uncle had traveled to Libya here.” last year. Fifteen minutes later, Konissa was “This man can help you,” the uncle driven to the large shed where Musa and wrote in a text in May, pasting in Musa’s his brothers kept the migrants. The ground number. was strewn with cardboard boxes and old A few minutes after getting off the tires. Five wild antelope, captured from the bus, Konissa dialed the number. The park- desert, skittered around the adjacent dirt ing lot was full of young men sleeping on yard. the ground. On the wall was graffiti in sev- Other migrants were sleeping next to eral languages. a roaring yellow generator. The scene felt “Ali from was here,” one strange and scary. Konissa had never been line read. this far from home. He lay down on the “A Guinean was here,” said another. ground and used his bag as a pillow. He Konissa held the phone to his ear. He had brought a winter jacket, assuming it had spent two years saving for the trip to would be cold in the desert, but now, even Europe, eking out a living as a tailor. If he after midnight, it was nearly 100 degrees. made it to or Italy, the money he He didn’t feel any closer to Europe, the sent back would change the lives of his par- place he had seen in the Facebook photos of his friends who had already migrated. They were always standing on pristine streets, or inside nice buildings. “They always have the best clothes,” he said. Before going to sleep, Konissa called his father in a vil- lage in the Ivory Coast. “I found the place,” he said.

estern officials portray smugglers as hardened Wcriminals who have driven the surge in migrants to European shores — where more than 100,000 have arrived this TUESDAY, JULY 21, 2015 KLMNO PAGE 5

year. The smugglers are “21st-century slave in the sand during the day and by the stars traders,” as Italy’s foreign minister, Paolo at night. In 2011, Libyan leader Moammar Gentiloni, put it. And indeed, there are Gaddafi was overthrown, and suddenly no alarming accounts of brutality by smug- one was stopping boats from leaving the glers, including a recent Amnesty Inter- country’s ports for Italy, just 200 miles national report detailing how migrants away. Throngs of migrants began to arrive crossing Libya faced rape, torture and in Agadez. Musa was ready to profit. abduction. He and his brothers bought a fleet of But in Agadez, smugglers see them- Toyota pickups stolen from Libya. They selves as businessmen, providing a service built the shed in the store’s back yard and that Niger’s desert tribes have mastered. laid down old mats and carpets where the Musa’s father shuttled goods for years migrants could sleep. They started taking between Agadez and Libya, where U.S. and between 25 and 100 migrants across the U.N. sanctions made legal trade difficult. By Sahara every week, charging about $300 the time Musa was 20, he was crossing the each. Sahara, too. He learned to navigate by ruts “My phone number became famous

Tuareg traders walk past the Agadez . Agadez is the largest city in central Niger, with a population of over 120,000 people. The city is on one of West Africa’s largest human smuggling and drug trafficking routes. TUESDAY, JULY 21, 2015 KLMNO PAGE 6

PHOTOS BY JAVIER MANZANO FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

ABOVE: Saly, left, an 11-year-old who had traveled 1,000 miles to Agadez from Burkina Faso, waits with other migrants for nightfall and the start of the drive through the desert. Her uncle said she had been sent by her parents to get a job in Libya as a domestic worker. RIGHT: Konissa, second from right, from Ivory Coast, wanted a Post photographer to take a picture of his group before the 72-hour trip.

across West Africa,” he said. and another in Libya. He tried to hide his In about three years, Musa was a mil- enterprise from his four children, telling lionaire. He bought homes in Niger and them that he was a trader. It was a rare Libya. He bought cars and and glimmer of shame. smartphones, his selfies reflecting his Countries around the world have swagger, a man lying next to a pistol in the vowed to fight the smugglers. The Euro- desert. He married one woman in Niger pean Union recently announced a major TUESDAY, JULY 21, 2015 KLMNO PAGE 7

operation to detain smuggling ships com- of desert. ing from Libya. But breaking up the net- Earlier this year, Niger’s government works is a colossal task. passed a law that would allow judges to “There’s so much money at stake that sentence smugglers to prison for up to this has become almost impossible to stop,” 30 years, but experts say it hasn’t yet been said Mohammed Anacko, the president of enforced. the Agadez regional government council “If you pay the police, it’s no prob- and the top official in the city. lem getting to Libya, even a truck full of In June, a delegation from the Euro- migrants without papers,” said Maliki pean Union traveled to Agadez seeking to Amadou Hamadane, the head of the Aga- strengthen Niger’s law enforcement agen- dez office for the International Organiza- cies. Police and soldiers, however, are tion for Migration, or IOM. deeply involved in the trade. Many of them While the images of boats capsized in earn exponentially more in bribes from the Mediterranean have come to symbolize smugglers and migrants than they do from the dangers of illegal migration to Europe, their salaries, according to a 2013 report the trip through the Sahara is no less risky. from the Niger government’s anti-corrup- In June, the bodies of 48 migrants were tion agency, HALCIA. found in two locations a few hundred miles Perhaps the most glaring sign of the outside Agadez, according to the IOM. complicity comes each Monday, when the Musa shrugs off the risks of the jour- smugglers and their migrant cargoes leave neys. Agadez in a loose convoy led by a military “If God writes that you will die in the escort. desert, then that is how you will die,” he “The diplomats come and talk about said. stopping migration, but it’s just talk,” He regularly stumbles upon the Anacko said. “The smuggling networks are remains of those who didn’t make it, some- strong, and the migrants are desperate.” times taking a shovel from his truck to dig The Niger government has made spo- graves. radic attempts to shut down the smugglers. “We bury the bodies because that’s After the bodies of 92 migrants were found what our religion tells us,” Musa said. “We in the desert outside Agadez in 2013, offi- do not say anything to the authorities.” cers raided a number of the city’s stash On this Monday afternoon, when the houses, arresting their owners. Musa was migrants staying with Musa went to pur- caught smuggling migrants and spent one chase water containers for the three-day month in jail. He resumed his business journey, most returned with one $2 gallon nearly immediately after being released, jug. It was all they could afford. They took shifting his route to more remote stretches turns filling them from a spigot. TUESDAY, JULY 21, 2015 KLMNO PAGE 8

Konissa carried a jug and a small loaf business, only the driving. of bread. He had raced through the market According to the , to buy them. thousands of Nigerian girls and women “I am scared to be caught,” he said. have been trafficked to prostitution rings in Europe. usa didn’t ask questions when the After dropping the girls at a stash migrants arrived. When the 11-year- house, Jagondi parked his station wagon Mold girl from Burkina Faso named in front of his own house, next to a large Saly showed up, wearing a long skirt with mosque. He sat outside and ate a bowl of red birds on it, he looked at her but said rice and porridge. He recalled how, one nothing. night, he was driving around Agadez when He knew, like other smugglers in Aga- he spotted a 14-year-old girl whom he had dez, that not everyone he transported was shuttled here. He remembered her fondly; choosing to make the journey. But he saw she had called him “Daddy.” But that night, himself as a man providing a service. To a she was standing in a poorly lit back , visitor, he emphasized his professionalism, working as a prostitute. pointing out that his truck had just been She saw him in the car and screamed serviced and was unlikely to break down. “Daddy, Daddy!” he recounted. He kept He carried a phone in case of driving. emergency, unlike some of his competitors. “I was very, very sad,” he said. “They call me and ask for a trip to For his part, Musa appeared less con- Libya, and I do it for them,” he said. “I don’t cerned about his human cargo. After he force them to travel anywhere.” walked away from 11-year-old Saly, her Just two days before Musa’s truck uncle, who had accompanied her on the departed, a station wagon full of 12 Nige- 1,000-mile journey from Burkina Faso, rian girls had entered Agadez, driven by a explained to a reporter that she had been short, bald man named Jagondi, who even sent by her parents to make money in Musa described as a “big smuggler.” Libya. The girls had been sold by their par- “She will wash clothes or do other ents into a trafficking network, gondiJa­ work in the house,” said the uncle, Aziz said. It wasn’t an unusual event. He had Napon. “Back home, some women said been driving girls, mostly from Nigeria, on ‘Don’t bring the girl,’ but she wants to have the route to Libya for years, taking extra a job to help her parents.” care to hide his passengers. When she was asked why she was leav- “They will become prostitutes in ing home, Saly stared ahead and said noth- Europe,” he said matter-of-factly, claiming ing. that he is not involved in that part of the “She’s very quiet,” Napon said. TUESDAY, JULY 21, 2015 KLMNO PAGE 9

here is the little girl?” asked truck. He ate a quick dinner of porridge Musa’s brother Abdul Karim, and goat under a shelf with board games “Wstanding next to the truck on and hairbrushes. Then he manned the cash Monday night. register for a few minutes, selling milk and Saly was sitting on a backpack on the energy drinks. He emphasized his lack of ground. Three men lifted her onto the bed concern. of the pickup, seven feet above the ground. “Sometimes I forget that we’re even Then, one by one, the men climbed leaving tonight,” he said. aboard. Musa and his brothers had stuck Musa decided he would drive a sepa- tree limbs between the bags and supplies rate truck this night, behind his brother, so that the men sitting on the edge of the who would transport the migrants. Musa vehicle could hold on, their legs hanging wanted to see his family in Libya and bring just above the ground. It was the only way some supplies back. they could fit so many people. When the first truck was full, two of “Do we need money to pay the police?” Musa’s employees opened the metal gates one migrant asked. that separated the stash house from a main “Whatever I give you, they will take,” road. The truck shot onto the street and said a short, thin man named Moham- past a mosque where women were praying med, who works for Musa. “We will pay for outside. everyone together.” “Libya!” one woman cheered. “Will there be bandits on the way?” The vehicle flew by the last mud-baked asked another. houses of Agadez and within minutes it “You will be fine,” said Mohammed. was in the desert, in almost total darkness. Konissa watched the others find their When it drove into a ditch, the passengers places on the truck. groaned in unison, but everyone man- “God willing, we will make it,” he said. aged to keep their grip. The truck pow- “Musa is the best. He’s a professional. ered on toward the ahead. The only He never loses the road,” Mohammed lights came from other trucks, also over- assured him. crowded with migrants, their faces covered Konissa’s uncle was living somewhere in scarves to shield themselves from sand. in Italy. The plan was to call him once the Dozens of vehicles would depart for Libya truck arrived in the Libyan city of Sabha, in a single night. the next staging ground for migrants. After a few miles, the driver made Konissa already had the phone number of room for Saly in the front seat, and the girl a smuggler there. was helped down from the load. Then the Musa had returned to his convenience truck continued through the darkness, the store while the last migrants boarded the Libyan border 350 miles ahead. TUESDAY, JULY 21, 2015 KLMNO PAGE 10

The next morning, the police in Aga- Behind the counter, another of his broth- dez announced at a news conference that ers, Abdul Salam, laughed. “Even when he they had arrested about a dozen smugglers was young, we called Musa ‘The Warrior,’ ” and 40 migrants. he said. “He wasn’t scared of anyone.” Back at Musa’s store, his employees Then Abdul Salam went back to work. scanned photos of the detained. Neither The next migrants were due to arrive soon. Musa nor his brother was among them. [email protected] ABCDE

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2015

EXODUS DESPERATE MIGRANTS, A BROKEN SYSTEM

PHOTOS BY LORENZO TUGNOLI FOR THE WASHINGTON POST Closing down ‘the Backway’ A Libyan city’s crackdown on the deadly smuggling of migrants has its own human toll

by Kevin Sieff IN , LIBYA

he dead were laid in rows on the beach so they could be counted. A Tdozen bodies soon became a hun- dred. Somewhere off the coast, the dilapi- dated fishing boat was still bobbing, half- submerged. There would be more victims.

Amadou,Amadou, above, above, traveled traveled 3,000 3,000 miles frommiles Gambia from toGambia Zuwarah, Even in one of the world’s most noto- toLibya, Zuwarah, on what Libya, his countrymen on what call his “the countrymen Backway” to call Europe. “the Backway”Migrants had to been Europe. leaving Migrants Zuwarah allhad summer been onleaving flimsy vessels, rious smuggling capitals, the Aug. 27 such as the wreck at top. But a crackdown has left Amadou stuck. Zuwarah all summer on flimsy vessels, such as the migrant disaster was a shock. The people wreck at top. But a crackdown has left Amadou stuck. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2015 KLMNO PAGE 2

Migrants’ options dwindling in Libya

of Zuwarah borrowed shovels to dig a do the unthinkable: close down a major mass grave. They found the tiny drenched North African smuggling route to Italy. clothes of infants strewn on the shores. Never has it been more difficult to For years, Zuwarah had looked the stop the cascade of migrants and refugees other way while local smugglers got rich. trying to cross the sea to Europe. Over Migrants from sub-Saharan Africa, South 600,000 people have made the journey this Asia and flooded into Libya’s north- year, more than twice the number in all of ernmost city, boarding boats to flee their 2014. In and the Balkans, borders countries’ extreme poverty and war. But have crumbled before the onslaught from now, the city had enabled a major humani- the east. In Libya, the jumping-off point tarian disaster, one its residents could see for a smaller but still immense stream of close up. northbound migrants, hundreds of people “We need to do something,” Sadiq climbed aboard flimsy ships nearly every Nanees, the top security official here, said night this summer, taking advantage of a to a group of local leaders. state that has virtually collapsed since the And so Zuwarah’s citizens decided to 2011 overthrow of Moammar Gaddafi. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2015 KLMNO PAGE 3

PHOTOS BY LORENZO TUGNOLI FOR THE WASHINGTON POST Clockwise from top, stranded migrants sit and chat during a work break in Zuwarah, where many are paid about $10 a day by the city to sweep streets or paint curbs. Clothes belonging to migrants who have attempted the sea crossing litter the shore in Zuwarah. A volunteer militia, the Black Masks, hunts down smugglers, part of the city’s crackdown that began after the deadly wreck of a migrant boat in August. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2015 KLMNO PAGE 4

European officials have held meeting Amadou over the phone. “We need to wait after meeting, trying to slow the ceaseless for this thing to calm down.” flow of people. They have discussed target- Then Amadou was on his own, roam- ing smugglers’ boats from helicopter gun- ing around a city that was being trans- ships, adding naval vessels in the Mediter- formed. On a main street, residents posted ranean and hiring intelligence experts. So a large banner with pictures of the dead far, nothing has worked. from the shipwreck. Amadou walked past The crackdown in Zuwarah looked cafes and restaurants and the , like it might. Thousands of residents filled where people had hung a white sheet pro- the streets to demonstrate against human claiming: “A thousand times no to smug- smuggling. A militia pursued smugglers. gling.” For the first time in years, rescue boats Amadou is 26. He is short and thin reported that the seas north of this crucial with a big toothy smile, boylike except for city were empty. the goatee he is trying to grow. He knows But could it hold? about the danger in crossing the Mediter- Throughout Zuwarah, in crumbling ranean illegally, how the journey has killed stash houses and spare concrete rooms, the about 3,000 people this year. When friends migrants waited for their chance. asked if he could swim, Amadou replied: “I sink like a stone in the river.” Everyone madou heard the protesters from the would laugh, but it was also true, and it abandoned house where the smug- scared him. He spoke on the condition that Agler had taken him. He had traveled his last name not be used, because of his 3,000 miles from Gambia in 20 days, rid- precarious legal situation. ing a bus through Mali and Burkina Faso, But he was tired of earning around five a truck through Niger and a van across dollars a day in Gambia, tired of an author- Libya. itarian government that seemed to jail any- Now he could hear the sound of one it didn’t like. Amadou had dreams: a Zuwarah’s crackdown, a chorus of voices car, a television, a little piece of land. He chanting in . wanted a wife who was kind and smart “No more murdering for money,” he and tall, so that his children wouldn’t be as later learned the crowd was saying. short as he was. He had arrived here just as the bodies He had left Gambia after selling his from the shipwreck were being collected. market stall in the city of Serrekunda for His boat was supposed to leave the follow- $250, and begging his uncles and cousins ing day. But his smuggler fled, hoping to for more. avoid arrest. Eventually, Amadou had the $2,300 “Just give me a few days,” the man told he needed to travel “the Backway,” as Gam- SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2015 KLMNO PAGE 5

bians call the illegal journey to Europe. He militia that drives through town in pickups spoke on the condition that his last name with tinted windows, combating every- not be used, because of his precarious legal thing from burglars to militant groups situation. from outside the city. Libya had been an abstraction, less a “It fell on us to end this,” said Adam country than a springboard to something Abza, the militia’s spokesman. better. Two weeks after arriving, though, It’s not that residents had been Amadou wandered into a dimly lighted unaware of the tragedies occurring off Internet cafe and slumped over a keyboard. Zuwarah’s coast. Boats had capsized before, “I’m still here, man,” he wrote on Face- killing dozens and even hundreds of people book to a friend back home in Gambia. at a time. But those disasters happened in “We stuck in Libya,” he wrote to international waters, and the bodies were another who had migrated to Austria. taken to Italy or . Few here saw the He scrolled down his feed, clicking carnage. on photos of his friends who had already And Zuwarah’s 60,000 residents were made it to Europe. They posed in front of consumed with more immediate problems fancy cars and shopping malls. They wore than human smuggling, such as attacks by new sneakers and baseball caps. tribal and political rivals. Militant groups, Amadou was a half-mile from the sea including followers of the Islamic State, and 187 miles from Italy. had seized power 15 miles away. In Decem- “I gotta get out of here,” he wrote. ber, warplanes belonging to another fac- The men who hunted Zuwarah’s smug- tion bombed Zuwarah, killing at least eight glers wore black ski masks. Underneath, people. they were schoolteachers, graying bureau- Amid the chaos, local smugglers had crats and engineers. They had to improvise thrived, driving through the streets in an anti-migration effort out of the chaos of Mercedes-Benzes and Hummers. Some of a failed state. them had day jobs as government officials. There is no effective police presence Some were unemployed young men look- in this port community, where homes and ing for a quick profit. apartment buildings are still pockmarked “Everyone knew who the smugglers by the war that toppled Gaddafi, and cov- were,” said Nanees, the security official. ered with posters of the men who died “But we only had so many resources, and fighting. we had other priorities.” In a country so dysfunctional that it Then the Aug. 27 catastrophe hap- has two rival federal governments, there pened, leaving nearly 200 of the roughly are no military operations, either. Instead 400 passengers on the old wooden boat there are the Black Masks, a volunteer dead. Within hours, the Black Masks were SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2015 KLMNO PAGE 6

in their pickups, with jerry-built holding wiches, the sea breeze casting a layer of cells in the back. sand over everything. After 10 days, the militia had arrested “Man, I’m tired of this. I’m thinking about a dozen smugglers and their affili- about going to ,” said one man. “The ates, locking them up in a makeshift prison. boats are still leaving from there.” As the militia members crisscrossed “I’m ready to go back to Nigeria,” said the city, they saw migrants from sub-Saha- another. ran Africa walking down side roads or sit- Amadou wasn’t thinking about going ting on curbs. The migrants spoke quietly home. If he returned to Gambia, he risked in English or Wolof or Hausa, their eyes being jailed by a government that banned darting around nervously. But the Black its citizens from taking “the Backway” to Masks weren’t pursuing them. The militia- Europe. He would be an insult to his family, men believed that if they could remove the having wasted the extraordinary amount smugglers, the migrants would go home, of money they had lent him. or find jobs in Libya, where foreign work- During the lunch break, while the oth- ers had long done manual labor. ers talked, Amadou stared at the ground. “I don’t know what will happen to The previous night, he had spoken to his them,” Abza said. mother for the first time in weeks. She had heard a radio segment about boats capsiz- n the center of the city, next to a row of ing in the Mediterranean. buildings that had been pulverized in I think you should come back to Gam- I an airstrike, Amadou held a paintbrush bia, she told him. in one hand and a cigarette in the other. It He had talked to her from the cinder- had been just more than two weeks since block room he shared with six Gambians he arrived here. and Nigerians, a cramped home where He wore a yellow construction work- they listened to West African love songs er’s vest and a ski cap, even though the and cooked rice with tomatoes in the eve- temperature was close to 100 degrees. nings. He shuffled down the road, bending to “I told her I would, that I would come paint the curb in black and yellow stripes. back,” he said. “But I was lying.” He was surrounded by 16 men wearing Amadou had grown up on the beach identical vests, all of them migrants. in Gambia, staring at the sea. There’s no Now, they were paid about $10 a day way, he thought, that men could defend by the city to sweep the streets or paint the something so vast. Libya had a 1,100-mile curbs. coastline, the longest in North Africa. It The men quietly discussed their plans couldn’t be sealed. during a lunch break, eating chicken sand- SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2015 KLMNO PAGE 7

rom the hull of Lt. Col. Assam Tor’s rounding cities. ­Thirty-nine people died patrol boat, the Mediterranean off Khoms one day. Twelve died off Tripoli F looked wide open, the sunlight flat another. About 4,500 were saved by the against the sea. Nearly three weeks after Italian coast guard on another. the crackdown began, Tor was conduct- “If you can get out of Zuwarah, you ing a morning patrol for the Libyan coast can still leave,” Tor said. guard, whose Zuwarah force consisted of Amadou knew that, too. By mid- two small skiffs with no lights and hardly October, some of his roommates had paid any fuel. a driver to take them to Tripoli, where the “Even the migrants have bigger boats,” boats were still departing. It cost $400 for he said, shaking his head as a wave crested the 80-mile drive. Amadou had only $250, over the rim of his 30-foot skiff. For the and was struggling to find work. past few years, his force had been virtually The weather was turning colder, the useless as a parade of smuggler ships sailed waves were choppier, the risk of capsizing from the Zuwarah coast. was increasing. There were rumors that This morning, though, the horizon Zuwarah would soon target the drivers was a clean line. There were no other ves- shuttling people to Tripoli. sels to be seen. The crackdown was work- “Man I need your help,” Amadou ing. wrote to friends and relatives on Facebook, A week later, the city’s blockade was appealing for the extra money. still in effect. Zuwarah had shut down the smug- “There’s been nothing,” said Foued glers, but that didn’t mean Amadou’s jour- Gamoudi, the Tunisia country director for ney was over. He would find the money, he Doctors Without Borders, which operates declared in a Facebook message. He would rescue ships off the coast. find the driver. He had learned that you “When the families of Zuwarah say could will yourself across any border if you smuggling should stop, it stops.” were ready to risk enough. But back in his office, Tor received [email protected] reports of the boats leaving from the sur-