Libyan police shot, killed Africans on sight –Returnee

Mr. Sunday Ikeah, a 25 years old man who just returned from Libya, explained that he decided to return home to Nigeria after he witnessed mass shooting and killings of Africans by Libyan policemen.

 Ikeah from Imo State, who specialised in building pillars, said to have spent almost N800,000 to get to Libya. When he eventually got to Libya, he couldn’t get any meaningful job. The man was arrested while returning from work.

Ikeah said he was held by Libyan police until he coughed up N200,000.
He said: “My target was to go to Italy after making some money in Libya. I would get a contact to move me to Italy.

I paid N300,000 to a boat operator. But on the day of my moving, police came to the place to raid.
They killed many Africans that day.

They were shooting at sight. I was able to escape that incident and from there, I made up my mind to go to the deportation camp. It was from the deportation came that I returned to Nigeria.” Another returnee, Mr. Efosa Edomwonyi, 35years, introduced himself as an editor of music and movies.

He noted that his major concern was how he would be able to put his Libyan experiences into film very soon, now that he is back in Nigeria. Edomwonyi, with a smile on his face, believed that whatever experience any man passed through in life, was for a purpose and reason, with the bottomline being to better his or her tomorrow.
He also said: “I was doing very well before I travelled outside the country in the quest for greener pastures. I spent N500,000 through a contact in my base in Benin, Edo State. Most of those guys who are into this traveling stuff are not using their real names; otherwise I would have exposed them.

They are very wicked people and knew how bad the environment over there is. But they are only after the money they would get from travellers; money they make from gullible people who believed that going overseas would change their lives for a better tomorrow.”

Edomwonyi said that he boarded over 23 vehicles before getting to Libya. He took to writing his experiences in a notebook; everything in the notebook, according to him, will be translated into his forthcoming movie.

He said: “My movie will be like an advice to our youths; there is no hope overseas. It is not a journey worth embarking. Since I left Benin on June 28, it has been from one suffering to another. If one person commits a crime, everybody would be punished because we are all blacks. My movie will say it all very soon. I want to use this opportunity to thank the Federal Government for its efforts in bringing us back home.

“In one of the camps where we were kept, if anybody wants to buy things outside the camp, you would have to bribe the guards up to N2,000 before will are allow to go outside. The funny thing is that you might want to buy something of just N500. Most of us who were there, made up our minds to come back home. Libya is hell for any person with a black skin.

Nobody can escape from that camp.” Another returnee, Jackson Etuk James, said that his mother sold the family’s piece of land for N750,000 to facilitate his journey to Libya. Like others, his story was one of horror and regrets.